Initially, there was to be no rescue. Ten it
was to be a search, and then Baur found himself being asked to fly on the mission. Tere’d been some intense deliberation at higher levels. Baur, accustomed to the Coast Guard’s rapid response posture and their ability to be “wheels in the well in seven minutes,” felt differently about the Air Force’s rescue planning protocols. He hastily packed an AWOL bag with a couple of flight suits and a toilet kit and then called his mother to say goodbye. “Hey, Mom. Listen, I’m going out on a rescue,” he said, providing her with the location of any import- ant papers she might need. “You’ve never called me before
with anything like this.” His mother sounded worried. “I’m just being honest with you. Tis is different from other rescues,” said Baur. “Well, if the weather’s bad, just
don’t fly.” “Don’t worry, Mom. I won’t.” When Baur arrived at the
squadron, they didn’t meet and brief as usual. He was met in the parking lot and helped into his survival gear, after which he climbed into the left seat of one of two HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopters, their engines running. “I plugged my helmet in and asked where we were headed. Te response I heard back was ‘Royal Canadian Air Force Base Shearwater in Halifax, and we got you a sand- wich from the deli.’” Baur would be copiloting for Lt. Col. Ed
Fleming. Tech. Sgt. James “Doc” Dougherty, the crew’s pararescueman (PJ), and Senior Master Sgt. Rich Davin, their flight engineer, were preparing Jolly 14 for flight. Piloting the other Pave Hawk, Jolly 08, was Capt. Graham Buschor and his crew: Maj. Gene Sengstacken, Tech. Sgt. John Krulder, and Tech Sgt. William Moore. Several hours later, Baur was at a Halifax
Holiday Inn, where he met the “Yankees” (Marine Aerial Refueler Transport Squadron 452), who would be their refueling escorts in the morning. “Do me a favor,” Baur asked a Marine pilot. “I’m gonna be up on 5696,” referring to HF 5696 MHz, the Coast Guard
search-and-rescue (SAR) frequency where Baur planned to keep his radio guard and position reporting. “Monitor that for me. If I go in, get visual—and I guess tell my ex-wife the check’s gonna be late this month.” “It certainly played through my mind about
who was gonna come get me, if anybody,” says Baur. “I put stock in the Marines. I knew that if they were on the same frequency, they’d know where we were in case nobody else did.” Tat night, the phone in Baur’s hotel room
because I am coming back? If I leave the bag here and I don’t come back, that means one of my friends will have to deal with it. Finally, he decided, **** it, I’m gonna come back. He closed the door and headed out. Te crew received their mission briefing at
Base Shearwater where the planning cell had worked through the night to orchestrate a rescue plan. Guidance was firm: the helicopter was not a search asset but a rescue platform. Te HH-60 crews were prohibited from going beyond the turnaround time, refueling at night, or using their night-vision goggles (NVG). Tey were to fly to a set of coordinates where they could expect to find the Salvador Allende survivors in white wooden lifeboats and join the crews of an RCAF CP-140 Aurora and a Coast Guard HC-130 from Elizabeth City, North Carolina, already on scene. Baur had enough time to eat
The Salvador Allende
rang off the hook. If it wasn’t the mission planning cell with updates, it was the people he worked for at Customs asking him where he was and what he was doing. “What if some- thing happens to you?” “Don’t worry about it,” Baur reassured them.
“It’s all gonna come together. It’ll be fine. See you bright and early Monday.”
Mission Day When Baur’s phone rang at 3:30 am on Saturday, Dec. 10, it was the clerk at the hotel front desk. “Te RCAF bus is outside waiting for you.” How could that be? “What do you mean the
bus is waiting for me? Te launch window isn’t until—.” “Oh no,” she interrupted. “Te launch window
has been moved up.” How the hell does a hotel clerk know when a mission time has been moved up? Baur hung up and put on his flight suit. As he was ready to leave the room, he saw his AWOL bag on the bed. He froze in the open doorway: Do I take the bag with me because I’m not coming back, or do I leave the bag here
lukewarm scrambled eggs during the brief before the crews were dropped off at their aircraft. Tey started up, taxied, and took off
into a snowstorm. It was 90 minutes before sunrise.
Heading Out Visibility was terrible. Tey couldn’t see anything through the clouds and snow, so Baur “painted” the coastline with the Pave Hawk’s radar before deciding to extend and lock the refueling probe into position, recommending the same for wingman Buschor. “Tere’s nothing in the manual that says you can’t fly with it extended,” says Baur. “If you get low on fuel but suddenly you can’t get the probe extended, it’s close to impossible to refuel because of the proximity of the rotor blades to the refueling hose.” On they flew, now with a roaring 70 kt.
tailwind. Te blade-deicing system was working on Baur’s aircraft but failed on Buschor’s, posing an extra challenge. Tey began accumulating ice and climbed above the weather. Sometime after sunrise, a Marine KC-130 arrived for the first of many refueling operations. Once at the survivor extraction point, they needed to descend again, immediately reaccumulating
MARCH 2021 ROTOR 33
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