The Siberian rescue mission:
A true experience, as told by Tim Slater
Visibility Unlimited – Temperature -35C
Welcome to the far side of the world.

The following is a true account of a KaiserAir crew’s experience rescuing a disabled Gulfstream IV in Siberia, as told by Tim Slater, a 10-year KaiserAir pilot.

The Predicament
In January of 2005, a Gulfstream IV (G4) set off from Anchorage en route to Yakutsk, a small town some 600 miles west of Magadan, Russia. Heavy fog and low clouds had shrouded and closed the Yakutsk airport for eight weeks. The weather in the Russian town had barely come up to minimums when the G4 crew decided to take off, agreeing to check the weather hourly and if it worsened, turn around by Magadan. Flying over Magadan conditions fell below minimums. There were two options: The crew could return to Anchorage, eight hours back, or land in Magadan and wait for improvement. They elected to land.

On the ground in Magadan at noon. it took two hours to get someone out to the airport. Once the aircraft was parked, the crew was left totally alone, inside the plane. So they waited. When airport personnel did return with fuel, the weather had improved to above minimums. By 2 p.m. the crew was ready to roll. But the Russians said NYET, not until 6 p.m. If they took off for Yakutsk and missed the approach, they would have to return to Magadan – and a closed airport. Landing was possible but the crew would have to rely on the APU running through the night. With Magadan's bitter cold temperatures, if it quit they could perish inside the airplane. The G4 crew bedded down for the night at a hotel in Magadan.

The next morning, the G4's struts were flat. Heat was applied to inflate them but the APU flamed out on the first try. On the second attempt, it seized up. The APU was toast. The crew called Gulfstream for help, who called KaiserAir. When we arrived 48 hours later, the G4 crew said the heard angels singing. And this is where our story begins.

The Call for Help
Thursday, January 20, 2005 Dispatch called. There was a G4 stuck somewhere in Russia and I was on the short list of crewmembers to go get it. No details yet, but standby to standby.

Friday, January 21, 2005 I got the call that we would be leaving Saturday at 4 a.m. to go to Magadan, Russia. Sounded so benign. Then I found it on the map – Siberia…in January. The airplane had blown its Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) and wouldn't start, and the Russians didn’t have an air start cart. The weather was so cold the plane's struts compressed fully and the shear pin had broken on the tow bar. A charter was able to get the passengers out, but the airplane had turned into a popsicle.

I did a little digging on the Internet about Magadan. It started as a small fishing/hunting/trapping village. Then gold was discovered. Some of the largest deposits on the planet are found there. Stalin knew this and sent many political prisoners there. It was generally accepted that if you were sent to the Gulag in Siberia to work the mines, you would not be coming home. Another “garden spot.”

I went to the local market and stocked up. Knowing that Siberia probably didn’t have a great deal of food other than boiled cabbage soup, I bought a cartload of frozen dinners, fruit, snacks, Gatorade and breakfast items we could cook on the airplane. It looked like I was feeding an army (actually it was three pilots and two mechanics), but I knew we did not want to get stuck without provisions in this place.

During my drive to the airport, I called Cingular. I asked if all my international calling options had been turned on. Yes, they were. I asked if there was service in Magadan, Russia and the agent thought that surely a town of 160,000 people would have cell service. Oh, it would cost $3.99/minute. So what? I thought, I was going to the moon and wanted to be able to call for help.

The 2 p.m. briefing looked like a plan to invade a country. The first priority: safety and the preservation of flying status of our airplane. We did not want to be the rescuer that needed saving. Maintenance, management, accounting and the pilots were all present to discuss aspects of the mission to make it a success. We talked about important issues and went over our checklist to ensure that our plane didn’t meet with the same fate. First and foremost we had to take every precaution so that our APU would run the entire time we are on the ground.

Our G3 was already en route to Rapid City, South Dakota. Seems a company called “Fightertown” uses a buddy hose to start their F5 from a G2 and was willing to let us borrow their hose. The G3 then flew to Long Beach to pickup the APU. Gulfstream wasn’t sure if it was HAZMAT or not. The fluids had been drained, but there might still be fumes. They finally wrapped it in plastic and loaded it.

The G3 arrived at about 5 p.m. Luggage, tools, parts and food were all loaded on board – we looked like a flying Home Depot. Two pilots monitored the loading of the Nav Database for Russia and a third pilot made sure the paperwork was straight. We had a spare tire, rafts, and lots of other “contingency” equipment loaded aboard. One of the other problems the G4 was having was collapsed struts due to the cold. We determined a probable solution was to apply heater hoses directly to the struts to get them up.

Off to Magadan
We launched around 7 p.m. for Anchorage. It was an uneventful flight up. We parked at Signature and retired for the night. The gal at Signature commented that she wished she were coming with us. One of our pilots told her, “Not a chance, we are going to some nasty, freezing place called Magadan.” She was from there. She also looked at his overcoat and told him that if she were going back, she would be wearing “warm clothes.”

We were told that the airport in Magadan opened at 9 a.m., but international arrivals couldn’t arrive before 11 a.m. With such short winter days, one of our pilots arranged an earlier arrival of 10 a.m. to maximize daylight (and heat!) We took off, making several SATCOM calls enroute to confirm handling. When we passed into Russian airspace, the crew's tension level increased. Now we had to think in meters (for altitude) and millibars (for pressure). Set your altimeter wrong and they won’t find you until some more global warming takes place.

Historically, we know it took four days for the Apollo missions to fly to the moon. Wrong. It only takes four hours – from Anchorage to Magadan. The terrain below was endless white wasteland. As the miles went by, I noticed something about the chart that really drove home the remoteness of this place. If you open up four panels of a high altitude chart, it represents several hundred thousand miles. In the U.S., there would be something on the order of 2,000 airports within this space. On the Eastern Russian map, there were not 500, nor 50, but five. At least the weather was forecast to be clear.

We began the descent about 150 nm from the airport. The controllers were polite and the English relatively clear, although they asked the same questions repeatedly. We politely responded. No call signs here, just the Nnumber of the aircraft. We were cleared for the approach and it was eerie: in the U.S., an 11,000-foot runway would have several aircraft getting ready on the ground, a couple in the pattern and more on approach. We were it – solo – numero uno. We landed on a runway built during the cold war that had experienced several uplifts in the permafrost. Itt was more than a tad bumpy.

The Plan in Action
We taxied in, stopped and set the brake but did not shutdown the engines. Our pilot opened the door and took a copy of the diagram on “how to do a buddy hose start” outside. He figured he could show the ground folks the picture of how we had to park both airplanes to put the G4 next to us. It worked, we moved, and with the APU running, shutdown the engines. The outside air temp was -35 and I started a clock to monitor how fast it would drop.

The Russian army came on board to do a documents check, issue us visas and inspect. I turned on my cell phone and tried to report our on-time to Dave Campbell. It dialed, went through and in less than 10 seconds, I was talking to him as if he were next to me. Amazing – and a relief. Then he tried the SATCOM and it worked as well. The G4 was so cold its SATCOM had died. The crew was without communication to the outside world other than the pay phone in the hotel – not a swell option.

Our crew gave away several KaiserAir hats. They actually laughed at the baseball caps saying they could wear them during the two weeks of spring. One of the ladies, a blue-eyed blond, kept smiling and looking at one of our pilots. She spoke to our handling lady who also smiled, telling him that the blond thought he had a nice smile and pretty eyes. Okay, that got things rolling in the proper direction. I was even able to give the army officers fresh coffee. I took a cup outside to look around – it froze in the cup in five minutes.

The G4 crew was certainly happy to see us. They were staying in an airport “hotel.” Try converted military barracks – rooms, without bathrooms, the size of prison cells with very little heat. Food was boiled cabbage soup (you thought I was kidding) three times a day. They had been there four days.

We gave the G4 crew pins so now they could tow their airplane to us. After positioning their airplane, they called for the heater trucks: large military vehicles with 12” canvas air hoses (about six per truck). It took two hours to get a fuel truck for us. When the trucks did arrive, they began heating the airplane, struts, inside, all of it. The exhaust from the trucks actually turned into ice on the wings that we had to clean off before departure.

We invited the other crew onto our airplane and discussed our plan. They heartily agreed and we went to work.

Four hours after landing, we were ready to try the jump start. We had walkie-talkies from MX[PAD1]. I was seated in the G3; another of our pilots was in the G4. We ran our checklists and I started an engine. After stabilizing it (I was alternating boost pumps to keep them loose in the jet fuel that by now was approaching the viscosity of Jell-O), I was ready to push air into the other airplane. We stationed one man outside in front of my nose so he could signal me if the hose came loose or there was another problem. When the pilot said, “GO” over the radio, I held my breath and turned on the APU air.

Soon there was the sweet sound of the engine winding up. I know it normally takes about one minute to get it up and stabilized, but it seemed like an hour. he called “good start.” All of a sudden I heard one of our crew yell and saw him start running towards the other airplane, behind me and out of sight. I shut off the APU air and throttled back to idle. I called the pilot in front of our G3 on the radio – no answer. Turns out the G4 had started to roll…oops. Uh, CHOCKS behind the wheels?! Once they got the airplane stopped, they tried to start the other engine.

We rolled up the hose and took our batteries out of their airplane and back to our airplane to charge. The handler had a very nice mink coat on. PETA obviously doesn’t exist here. Another guy had a pair of jeans on – a high status symbol in this society.

We wanted to depart after the G4 got off the ground and were told by the Russians, “Nyet, you leave at 2 p.m., they leave at 3 p.m.” Uh, can we negotiate this? “Nyet – well maybe, we ask.” “Strasvicha.” (Thank you.)

I started the right engine as the oil temp had gotten down to -20. It fired right up. Our struts were starting to compress in the cold. It was time to go. We gave the buddy hose and handheld SATCOM unit – and a few box lunches - to the other crew in case they had to divert on the way home. We figured we could pick the equipment
up in Anchorage .

Customs checked the airplane and thoroughly inspected for stowaways. Our papers were checked and returned. No criminals of the state here. The G4 took off and we followed 10 minutes in trail. Total time on the ground: just under five hours. Three hours and 45 minutes back to Anchorage. The crew in the G4 told every controller that would listen that the Gulfstream following contained heroes and should be given preferential treatment.
Thanks, guys.

Returning Home
Our chief pilot got on the SATCOM to make U.S. Customs arrangements on the way inbound. He had called them that morning to tell them we were gong to rescue an AOG (Aircraft on Ground – stuck) and had lots of parts on board, had a cargo manifest and that we were not picking up anything in Russia for import. So now, while still over Russia, he was providing arrival status for us and the G4. He also told them the G4 could not shut down both engines, requesting permission to leave one running. We parked at customs, went in to see the Immigration people and with a painless swipe of our passports we were cleared to go.

It was snowing west of Anchorage but the landing was uneventful. We were in the hotel by midnight. I slept like a brick.

Sunday, January 23, 2005
Back at the airport by 11 a.m., we cleaned up the airplane a bit and got the mechanics changing out the APU in a nice heated hangar. I ditched my coat and sweater. I was too warm.

Monday January 24, 2005
Safely back in the heated hangar in Anchorage, our team pulled the lifeless APU out of the G4 and the good one out of our G3. We swapped components and installed the new one.

The G4's new APU fired up on the first try and both engines started right away. We took our buddy hose (easier for us to return as it would have to go through customs again) and their disabled APU that we will rehab.

Wow – what a trip. I will never complain about the cold in Sonoma County again.

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