Chinook Crew Completes Dramatic Rescue

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The crew of a CH-47F Chinook helicopter used an unusual maneuver—sitting the tail of their aircraft on the mountain for several minutes, while still flying, with the nose in the air—to successfully rescue a Texas man from the slope of Mount Hood, in Oregon, last week. The rescue site, near the top of the 11,249-footmountain, was covered in snow and ice. The maneuver, known as a “pinnacle landing,” is familiar to military crews but rarely seen in civilian operations. The pilot, Donald Ford, with the Oregon National Guard, told local KOIN-6 news the rescue worked thanks to “old-fashioned stick and rudder skills, just flying the aircraft.”

Ford said he first tried to attempt a landing on the summit, but was unable to. “The summit is so narrow, it’s actually narrower than the width of the aircraft,” he said. He then had to depend on the crew to help maneuver the aircraft, since he couldn’t see the mountain from the cockpit. As he hand-flew the helicopter, “They were calling me in, telling me to move the aircraft left or right, one or two feet,” he said. “I’m not moving the aircraft until they tell me, and they give me directions.” Mount Hood, with easy highway access from the urban Portland region, is one of the most-climbed mountains in the world. The 27-year-old man who was rescued reportedly had taken drugs on the mountain in a suicide attempt, but then changed his mind and called for help.

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