Travelin' Man

16-hour saga ends with 2 friends airlifted from mountain canyon

Friday, January 11, 2002 - DURANGO - Just before 3:30 a.m. Thursday, and for the second time in 16 hours, Justin Kirkbride was in an aircraft thudding to earth in a rugged mountain canyon northwest of here

The 31-year-old Farmington, N.M., man first survived the crash of a single-engine Cessna he was piloting for two friends. Later, he was in one of two enormous Air Force helicopters sent to find and retrieve the two injured passengers left behind in the thick timber of the Dutch Creek Basin. But that helicopter, after hours of nighttime searching, also went down hard, not quite a mile north of the first crash site.

By early Thursday afternoon, Kirkbride was safely grounded in Durango and reunited with his fiancee at Mercy Medical Center. He was craving sushi, a nap and wondering whether, after two crashes, he was really lucky or unlucky.

All 10 men involved in one crash or the other survived their ordeals. The most seriously injured was small-plane passenger Larry Diamond, a 42-year-old man from St. Petersburg, Fla., who was here on vacation with family.

Diamond broke a leg and foot, suffered an uncertain injury to his neck, and had horrible bruising along his midsection, according to his sister, Heather Robbins of Kirtland, N.M., just west of Farmington.

Kirkbride had only a smattering of red marks across his forehead to show for his twin ordeals. None of the six airmen aboard the downed helicopter from Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque was seriously hurt. La Plata County Search and Rescue veteran Keith Roush, also aboard the chopper, was likewise checked at Mercy and released.

Diamond's fellow Cessna passenger and brother-in-law, Tom Robbins, had a long, thick gash down his swollen right jawline and two cracked ribs. He told the media Thursday afternoon that he'd lost consciousness when the plane crashed. He awoke to find Kirkbride dragging him away from the demolished plane and fuel-drenched snow. Diamond also managed to vacate the wreckage.

"I was bleeding profusely and little bit wango," Robbins said. "But I think (Justin) did exactly the right thing at exactly the right time. He did a pretty good job of putting us down."

Kirkbride said the plane had lost power and he couldn't gain altitude to clear the basin. He declined to discuss the crash further because, he said, he really couldn't remember a lot of details. And he hadn't yet spoken with an investigator from the Federal Aviation Administration.

After the impact, the 6-foot-3 Kirkbride slogged for nearly six hours, first in snow up to his knees and then along a wet and muddy creek bed. He finally found a pack trail.

"In all honesty, my only thinking was to get them (Robbins and Diamond) the helicopter ride I'd promised them," Kirkbride said of the hours-long trek.

Kirkbride finally had success calling on his cellphone from a clearing near Bondurant Creek, downstream of Dutch Creek. He was rescued, the first time, just before 6 p.m. by a Durango-based New Air Helicopter. Pilot and crew were Steve Krug and Roush.

Nightfall aborted a brief search by New Air. Later, about 11 p.m., Kirkbride and Roush would join an Air Force crew on one MH-53 helicopter with night vision and continue combing the ridges and canyons.

Back at the Cessna wreckage, Robbins, long-haired and bearded, was otherwise scantily covered. He was clad only in shorts, T-shirt and a leather jacket during his frigid night in the mountains. Still, he said, he wasn't that cold in a shelter he fashioned from plane debris, snow and pine boughs. But he had no matches for a fire.

Robbins said he was craving a glass of his homemade red wine. "I thought about that all night," he said.

Robbins dozed a bit but was continually awakened by Diamond, who had his way of coping with their predicament.

"Larry would holler out about every 15 minutes," Robbins said. "It made him feel better."

The men could hear helicopters churning overhead and see the searchlights but were unable to signal them with a makeshift metal reflector.

The crew of one MH-53 helicopter finally spotted the Cessna about 3 a.m. On board, Kirkbride's relief was short-lived, as he felt the chopper turn into a tight, dizzying spin. He felt the chopper graze several trees. It landed with a thump just before 3:30 a.m. Diamond and Robbins didn't hear the crash-landing but thought it was strange that no helicopter returned for some time.

The second Air Force helicopter finally spotted its downed cohort. The airborne crew was reassured when it could see all eight downed men moving about freely on the ground around a signal fire. The crew aloft then moved on and located the Cessna about 4:15 a.m., relaying the position.

"At 5:15 (a.m.), Larry hollered out and somebody hollered back," Robbins said. Two on-the-ground search teams had converged on the Robbins and Diamond. They brought blankets, food, water, dry socks and, best of all, Robbins said, the means for building a crackling fire.

The New Air helicopter airlifted Robbins, then Diamond.

By early afternoon, all the downed helicopter occupants were at the hospital, including an exhausted but happy Kirkbride, rejoined by his fiancee, Amanda Spencer of Santa Fe.

DavidMich

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