Murder on Fletcher Ice Island

in something reminiscent of a suspense movie a shooting in 1970 on a nearly inaccessible iceberg in the Arctic Ocean left a Navy research division Desperately Seeking answers how do authorities deal with an alleged murder in one of the most remote places on the planet the shocking murder on Fletcher Ice Island deserves to be remembered on its website the Woodle oceanographic institution describes a surprising project of the Soviet Union in 1937 a scientific team was landed on an ice flow near the North Pole a team of just four men drifted on the ice Island for more than 2600 kilm over the course of 264 days the institution explains that the crew regularly measured ocean depth took bottom soil samples measured water temperature took water samples from different levels and carried out meteorological observations when the station drifted into the Greenland sea the men had to be evacuated which included a degree of difficulty but the scientific Expedition made important discoveries including that there was neither large land masses nor small islands in the vicinity of the North Pole and that the opinion about lifelessness at the near pole region was disproved the weather and magnetic observations were particularly valuable as they opened the possibility for routine air routes across the Arctic the Soviet program using such drifting stations continued from 1937 to 1991 and included 88 polar Crews Woodall writes that the research program of the North Pole drifting stations is unequaled in the 20th century by duration variety of observational material importance of scientific discoveries and number of resolved problems surprisingly though the institution notes that the Soviet postwar activities in the Arctic were unknown to the West until 1954 but the United States was also interested in research in the Arctic region for numerous reasons Woodle explains that the US began using b29 aircraft to conduct reconnaissance observations in 1946 by 1951 the Air Force had identified several large ice Islands floating near the North Pole and decided to establish a weather station on one of them to do geophysical research rear Admiral Carl Holquist wrote in the proceedings of the US Naval Institute in 1972 that the Air Force with large air bases at Tuli Greenland and Fairbanks Alaska had a vital interest in the Arctic environment scientific information was needed for such problems as search and rescue survival and the construction of emergency landing strips in the Arctic the ice Island on which the Air Force chose to establish a station was called T3 the Science magazine EOS noted in 2019 the ice Island stretched more than 77 Square kilm an area larger than Manhattan and its level surface made it ideal for landing aircraft homequest writes that T3 appears to have broken off from yelberton Bay on ellere island probably sometime after 1935 the ice Island about 130 ft thick and covering a 5x 10 mile area consists of freshwater ice interspersed with layers of dirt and gravel all formed over the last 3,000 years on March 19th 1952 a team led by Colonel Joseph Fletcher the deputy commander of the US Air Force's fourth Weather Group landed on T3 in a c46 an aircraft equipped with skis Fletcher told Scientific American in 1954 when we reached it the pilots made three touchdown attempts before they were finally able to land our plane on the rough ice as we slowly opened the door to leave the plane a biting wind hit us in the face while still designated T3 the island became commonly known as Fletcher's Ice Island T3 turned out to be quite persistent while many other temporary stations had to be abandoned T3 carried on was occupied by the force between 1952 and 1954 then occupied again in 1955 becoming what homequest calls the nucleus for an Arctic research program during the international geophysical year in 1957-58 at the same time homequest writes that the US Navy Office of Naval Research was conducting its own drifting Ice Station program as it was convinced that it was essential for much needed Arctic research there was no other way to gather data on the Arctic Ocean environment except with great difficulty and expense in 1960 T3 became grounded and parts of the Ice Island broke off in a storm the Air Force decided to abandon the T3 station in 1961 but the island Broke Free by the end of 1961 and in 1962 the O NR identified the island floating more than 100 miles north of its last location and realized that most of the station was still intact and they decided to occupy it again the Air Force officially transferred the equipment to the Navy the Anchorage Daily News wrote in 2023 transferred from the Air Force to the Navy the mission remained the same to learn more about the mysterious Arctic at its peak more than 40 scientists and Engineers were stationed at Fletcher's Ice Island engaged in a diverse range of biological geophysical and meteorological studies some of the data collected there is still used today functionally Irreplaceable given the Myriad difficulties of research so far north well the operation was conducted under the opes of the Navy's Office of Naval Research the station was usually occupied entirely by civilians geophysicist Carolyn Rupel told EOS the men spent months and months on this island under extreme conditions just to get the science conditions were in fact brutal Fletcher said of the first station the T3 experiment has demonstrated that man can survive the killing cold and numbing Winds of the desolate North Pole region but only if he is supplied with the best of equipment homequest describes the conditions violent storms frequent fog and persistent low overcast Skies Prevail in summer and winter winter temperatures are well below freezing and sometimes reach minus 60° F in the summer the temperature occasionally goes above freezing but a chilling wind will drive the equivalent temperature to much lower values winter is a time of consistent Darkness except for a few hours of dim Twilight near noon in summer months there's virtually constant daylight you might imagine that summer is more popular than winter but that isn't the case in summer the ice becomes too soft to land aircraft and supplies are dropped by Parachute this can make for a difficult situation homequest writes that in 1963 a scientist on another floating station had become ill and the only option to retrieving was called the aerot rever the device consists of a specially designed seat attached to a 500t line carried into the air by a small balloon an aircraft fitted with a special Yol then snags the line so that the aircraft crew can attach it to a winch that all sounds quite harrowing especially for an already ailing scientist but the scientist died before the rescue could be attempted the situation emphasized the difficulty of contact with the floating ice stations Hest writes it was not until 7 years later that another death was to occur on an Arctic Ice Station under entirely different and unexpected circumstances in the summer of 1970 the station was manned by 19 men hus writes that the 19 men were employees of federal agencies civilian institutions and private companies under contract to the onr as well as Alaskan natives implied by the naval atmospheric research laboratory as support Personnel the station manager Benny P lightley of Louisville Kentucky was employed by the US weather bureau and was the technician in charge of its T3 meteorological program as station manager his position was largely titular there was not much to do on the island home Quist writes recreational activities are quite limited and generally confirmed to books games and movies one activity that had become almost routine was the Brewing of wine from raisins or other fruits the Anchorage Daily News writes on July 16th 1970 Mario esamia accused fellow scientist Donald lit of stealing his homemade raisin wine certainly a prized possession the argument grew heated and eskia left to retrieve a rifle on his way back he was stopped by station manager Benny lay homequest writes that what happened at that point is not entirely clear but it is evident that a heated discussion took place a bear rifle guns are kept in the camp for protection against polar bears head by esia was fired in some way and lay received a chest wound near the heart The Killing raised many difficult questions the station had no doctor although that would have made little difference in this case as homequest notes from the information relayed it was apparent that the victim had expired from a wound so serious that even immediate Professional Medical Aid would have been to no avail the remoteness of the site was demonstrated by the fact that the station radio operator was unable to contact NL and ended up having to put a general SOS ass out by ham radio homequest Rights onr was now faced with a few dilemas an official investigation had to be made in L's body and the suspect had to be returned to the states yet the runway at T3 was unusable for fixed wi aircraft and will remain so until late September or October but perhaps more thorny the Anchorage Daily News writes is who should investigate the death raised a fascinating and heret largely unexamined issue of jurisdiction though primarily St by Americans the ice Island spent most of its existence in international waters in fact the island was frequently closer to Canada than the United States which that is some diplomatic friction no one was sure whether to treat the ice Island like a territory a ship or something new the Sue St Marie Canada star wrote Canada in addition to claiming sovereignty over all the Arctic islands has passed legislation asserting the right to jurisdictional control over water pollution up to 100 miles offshore in the Arctic the case had significant implications the paper reported one specialist on the law of the sea was quoted as saying that the question is a can of worms would just as soon keep closed homequest noted that the laws of the sea are clear for jurisdiction over ships boats rafts and debris but ice Islands were none of those beyond the international issue was the narrow issue of the Navy's responsibility the project operated under the Navy's Office of Naval Research but neither the deceased nor the suspect was a Navy employee the task of informing and assisting the NEX of kin was is taken by the environmental science Services Administration the predecessor to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration which oversaw the weather bureau and who would investigate the FBI had no assets in remote areas homequest writes that the best option was the Navy's Naval investigation service which was in the pre Jethro Gibbs era before it was called NCIS but the best idea for actual jurisdiction of civilians on the high sea was the Coast Guard so a Guardsman would have to accompany the NIS team and how to get there without being able to land the team would have to parachute and removing the suspect would require the arot Trever but the equipment would take weeks to prepare and the suspect might not be cooperative waiting until planes could land in Winter offered its own risks as the suspect might still be dangerous the idea to use helicopters also offered problems as the ice Island at the time was 600 mi from the nearest US Airfield at Tully Greenland and no Navy helicopters had enough range to get that far the Air Force had helicopters at Tuli which could reach the island using refueling from their C130 tankers but that was a search and rescue team and it required a declaration of an emergency to detert them from their regular Mission even that scenario offered danger as the weather was notoriously dangerous in the Arctic summer as a further problem the suspect would have to be taken directly to the United States as stopping for refueling in Canada might create another issue of jurisdiction to make matters worse the incident was already showing up in the Press the onr put the pieces together in just over a week officially requesting aid from the Air Force and declaring an emergency to do so a team including two NIS investigators an assistant us attorney a coast guard yman and a replacement for Lay arrived in Tuli on July 24th there an Air Force helicopter had to be modified to add the probe for inair refueling the group departed Tully on the 27th and stayed 3 days on fletch's island for the investigation they departed with esia and L's remains for Tuli on the 29th he stayed the night there as Denmark had no interest in a crime that hadn't occurred on their territory and departed on the 30th directly for Dulles International Airport where esamia was charged by the Department of Justice with a crime of second deegree murder on the high seas the US claimed jurisdiction under special maritime law in the end the jurisdictional issue wasn't finally settled Canada specifically waved jurisdiction in just this case without prejudice towards further claims about jurisdiction over T3 the US amended the criminal code to give Federal jurisdiction in cases where crimes are committed by or against US citizens in places where another nation has jurisdiction but that has not been tested internationally at trial the defense argued that the rifle was defective and might have gone off by accident the jury found that esamia was not guilty of second-degree murder but instead guilty of involuntary manslaughter but even that conviction was overturned on appeal and in a second trial the jury acquitted him so that after all the effort for the investigation and all the questions of jurisdiction a jury finally decided that no crime had been committed the station on Fletcher's Ice Island was finally abandoned in 1974 the island was last visited in 1979 and last seen from the air in July of 1983 since s is presumed to have left the arctic ice pack and melted in the Atlantic Ocean I hope you enjoyed watching this episode of the history guy and 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Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 47,451

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy

Id: tV61qRJ8B2U

Length: 14min 41sec (881 seconds)

Published: Fri May 03 2024