Lessons learned from the Oregon tragedy

"Al G" wrote:

"john smith" wrote

Newps wrote:

Tennis shoes, no hat or gloves. There could have been no other
outcome.

Sure there could have!
He walked the wrong way.
One mile in the opposite direction was a stocked fishing lodge,
according to the reports I have been reading.

Well, it might have been 1 mile by GPS, but you can't get there from
here.

Also, I may be wrong, but as I remember, Black Bar Lodge is on the
South side of the Rogue river, and Kim was on the north side.

Black Bar Lodge is on the north side of the river.

Here is a link to a map containing the latest information I've seen on
the subject:

http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showflat....91/Main/707603

Note that early information had the car at the junction of the road to
Black Bar Lodge. This information was corrected, and the place they were
stuck was about 6 miles farther up the road, as shown on the map in the
link. Therefore, Kim was more than a mile from the car when he was
found, and Black Bar Lodge was about 7 miles from where they were stuck.

"Al G" wrote in message
...

"john smith" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Newps wrote:

Tennis shoes, no hat or gloves. There could have been no other outcome.

Sure there could have!
He walked the wrong way.
One mile in the opposite direction was a stocked fishing lodge,
according to the reports I have been reading.


Well, it might have been 1 mile by GPS, but you can't get there from here.

Also, I may be wrong, but as I remember, Black Bar Lodge is on the South
side of the Rogue river, and Kim was on the north side. No way you're
going to cross this time of year. Black Bar is the last "outpost"(i.e.
open to the public) at the top of the wild and scenic section of the
Rogue. For 14 years I flew Walter Haas in and out of his place at Winkle
Bar, Zane Grey's old cabin, and the next lodge down from Black Bar. We
used a turbo C-206 w/ a Robertson kit to access the beautifully mowed 500'
of grass next to the cabins, on a bend in the river. 2 feet short, or 3
feet long, and you were in the water. The Calvert Peak airstrip is at
3800msl(1600' long), and is just Northwest of where these folks were
found. The general terrain around there goes from 5298' @ Brandy Peak, on
the South side, down to 500' at the rivers edge, and back up to Mt.
Boliver @ 4319' on the North side. Many peaks on both side are in the
4000' range.This time of year, it is not uncommon for a low overcast to
lay in between snow showers, and remain for weeks. Even if you could get
to the top of a hill, you couldn't see anything.
I live about 30nm north of this area, and can tell you it is very
vertical, shadows at high noon and all that. He probably walked closer to
15 or 20 miles, winding around the mountain getting down to a spot a mile
or so below his car.
Last year a guy in a motor home did the same thing, and he was up there
with his kids for 3 weeks to a month, before someone spotted him from the
air. In that case everyone got out. They had a lot of provisions.
The pilot that found them is a student of mine. Well, I flew with him
for his private training almost thirty years ago. He is a very level head,
and not easily excitable. I believe he was commuting from his ranch in
Agness, at the junction of the Rogue and Illinois Rivers.

Al G


My apologies, I just got a look at a desent map, it looks like they were
on the south side of the river, on the same side as Black Bar. This is steep
terrain indeed.

Al G

As pilots we should all be aware of the danger of Get-there-itis.

It appears that Get-there-itis caused Kim to keep going long past the
point where he should have turned back. Regardless of what he saw on the
map or other navigation device the road and weather conditions were
shouting "TURN BACK". Yet as conditions worsened he passed up several
opportunities to turn back.

James Kim's poor judgment to not turn back was the probable cause of
this tragedy.

- John Ousterhout -



john smith wrote:
Mr Kim's death resulting from his decision to attempt to walk out of an
area he was unfamiliar with after becoming stranded, raises some thought
provoking questions for aviators.
In years past, this forum has carried several threads on surviving a
crash in a remote area. I behooves us all to review our personal
preparations for off airport landings in areas over which we will be
flying.

john smith wrote:
Mr Kim's death resulting from his decision to attempt to walk out of an
area he was unfamiliar with after becoming stranded, raises some thought
provoking questions for aviators.

There is nothing unique about Kim's death - nor much to learn, IMHO. At the
same time the Kim tragedy was playing out, another Oregon wilderness
tragedy occurred when a father and son went for a 6-hour snowmobiling trip
and got caught out in the wilderness. But when searchers finally found
them, the father had died.[1] When they were first reported missing their
family reported that the "two were described as well-equipped and
knowledgeable about survival in the mountains ... were reported to be
equipped with cell phones and multifrequency radios ... the two had been
snowmobiling in the area for years."

By the way, it looks like the Kim family tragedy has gotten an entry in
Wikipedia.[3]

[1] http://www.bendweekly.com/Local-News/1317.html
[2] http://www.examiner.com/a-424637~Two...a chelor.html
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Kim