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Outside Magazine February 2002

[The Pilot]
Chopper Queen
Few people could qualify to pilot a Jayhawk HH-60. Kodiak Lieutenant Commander Melissa Rivera flies one in the toughest conditions in North America.

By Natasha Singer


	Whirl Class: Rivera and her Jayhawk

AN HOUR BEFORE a routine training exercise in which she'll drop rescue baskets from her copter onto a Boston Whaler thrashing 20 feet below in rough Alaskan chop, Lieutenant Commander Melissa Rivera strides across the tarmac at the Coast Guard's Kodiak Air Station and begins inspecting her twin-engine HH-60 Jayhawk. Starting at the tip of the 14,000-pound needle-nosed mosquito, with her frizzy brown hair tamed into a French braid, Rivera shimmies up the hood to check that the engine hatches are firmly closed, scans each rotor blade for cracks, and eyeballs the fuel and oil levels.

On board a few minutes later, Rivera reminds the copilot and crew about emergency procedures should they, say, chip their tail in rough water, plummet into the ocean, and flip upside down. "If we ditch," she reports matter-of-factly over her headset, "it will be a left-side egress."

As one of only three women out of the 70 Coast Guard pilots stationed at Kodiak, Rivera, 31, is responsible for saving everyone—from stranded fishermen to mauled bear hunters to downed bush pilots—across four million nautical square miles of Alaskan territory. Flying for the Coast Guard anywhere is rigorous, but a posting at Kodiak is considered the toughest assignment in the service. The sheer size of the coverage area means that Rivera's missions can begin with 12-hour, thousand-mile relay flights just to get to an accident scene. And she'll routinely fly in total darkness and severe winter storms over terrain that lacks the navigational crutches like streetlights and flashing antennas that aid her counterparts in the Lower 48. The conditions turn even veterans into greenhorns. Despite six years of experience and an Air Medal earned in 1999 for plucking 47 North Carolinians off treetops during Hurricane Floyd, Rivera, like every other newly arrived Kodiak flyer, spent the first winter in the copilot seat. You need a full season under your jumpsuit before you get any respect up here.

Helicopter search and rescue was initiated in 1944, when the Coast Guard introduced the first recovery hoist, enabling choppers to offer rapid assistance to stranded victims at such previously impossible-to-reach spots as rough coastline, roadless wilderness, and high-altitude passes. Today, with specimens like Rivera's Jayhawk, a $16 million salvage-specific chopper that can cruise up to 180 knots one minute and steadily hover as low as ten feet off the ground the next, the helicopter remains the SAR vehicle of choice. Last year, Kodiak teams completed 210 missions, and saved 113 lives.

On the downside, the annual increase in lifesaving flights has also meant escalating danger to lifesavers. Lest Kodiak pilots forget this fact, a memorial mural in the base's central hangar provides a dark reminder. The fresco of choppers hovering over a flailing fishing boat depicts the downing of, among others, Helicopter 1471, which plummeted into Ugak Island in 1986 while its crew was trying to help a sinking ship, even after their electronics cut out. All six crew members died.

"We know stuff like that can happen, but we are trained to assess the risks," Rivera reasons, sitting in the cockpit. "Just because I'm getting in my [helicopter] doesn't mean I'm going to do something if I determine it's too risky to the crew."

Risk assessment, however, didn't keep her grounded when U.S. airspace was closed after the September 11 terrorist attacks. The next day, Rivera received special clearance to fly to Akutan, a remote town 750 miles southwest of Anchorage, where a cannery worker was unconscious from a bleeding ulcer. "Normally when you fly in Alaska there are lots of planes and nonstop radio traffic," she says, "but that day it was so quiet it was eerie." By the time they landed, the man had lost 40 percent of his blood; en route to the hospital, after the crew hooked up an IV, his blood pressure leapt from a near-death 60/30 to a stable 110/70. Rivera, who estimates she's helped save about 75 lives in her six years as a pilot, shrugs it off as a "routine mission."

Kodiak pilots can be laconic about the dangers they face, and Rivera, a mother of two who flew missions until she was six months pregnant, is no different. Adrenaline-pumping challenges are the reason the handpicked crews came here in the first place. "You get a certain amount of respect in the Coast Guard being a pilot," Rivera concedes. "But being an Alaskan pilot, it's a whole other level."

Next Page: Chuck Demarest and his colleagues won't take orders, don't wear uniforms, and each year handle more missions than any other volunteer SAR squad in America