These Men Survived Their Helicopter Crash Landing In The Sea | I Shouldn't Be Alive S6 EP6 | Wonder

Halloween 1991 an elite pararescue team is on a mission to save a stranded sailor we just knew that we were in for a hell of a ride but they don't know they're flying straight into the perfect storm there isn't anything you can do about it you can't tell God to turn the weather we're starting now to realize we're at our limits forced to ditch in the freezing Atlantic waters instantly the blades contacted the water and that's when it got really violent battling waves ten stories high this was a bad situation now it's the rescuers who need rescuing from the perfect storm it was clear to me that ultimately I was going to drown [Music] it's Halloween and off the eastern seaboard a violent storm is brewing pararescueman john Spillane has been called in for an urgent mission huh pararescuemen is a skydiving mountain climbing scuba diving surviving medic we were taking Norma's risk and we were willing to take that risk to save life he's part of a military chopper crew standing by to rescue sailors trapped by the storm come on what is it we've got a rescue mission from the Coast Guard fellow pararescueman Rick Smith has news of a stranded yacht off the coast okay guys take a seat so pilot Dave Rivoli leads the five man team we all evaluated the weather and yeah it is risky but there was somebody's life at stake the stranded yacht is located 450 kilometers of the coast component grain Buescher will navigate the men in this particular situation 250 nautical miles out to sea it's beyond the range of most helicopters so yes it ramps up the risk on the mission substantially only the military's helicopters can reach the yacht like this could get rough we all set yes what it'll require dangerous midair refueling okay cockpit checklist APU control switch the crew of Air Force rescue 1 1 zero is ready to roll as they leave reports come in at the weather system of the East Coast is developing fast two massive fronts are colliding with a hurricane but the forecasters have no idea how dangerous it will become shall I open the sunroof the Joker in our pack is by far grandpa sure he's a lot of fun to be around and he certainly is is a joker there's no doubt about it so what do you do for Halloween grant one of my sister Elaine's to do a party there every year like an annual thing we all work together very well Dave the aircraft commander very goal-oriented individual being in charge and being a leader kind of comes naturally to me when I was a kid I mean I was never the first a second to be picked I was always the captain myself I'm a little more laid-back I think Jimmy Olie falls more into that category also I loved helicopters anything about helicopters then when you had that need kind of man toy stuff that we we have it's it's a lot of fun Rick was reserved on the quiet side very professional and John was more vocal than Rick I guess it was an amazing time in my life I was only married at this point two years we were expecting our first child my wife was five months pregnant half an hour in and the crew get ready for the first refueling airspeed 120 altitude 1500 we've got 45 minutes of gas left in these turbulent conditions Dave revellers skills as a pilot will be tested to the limit you need to overcome the anxiety and the fear factor of applying that close to another airplane he needs to gently ease the helicopters probe into a supply line trailing behind a flying fuel tanker you know you've got it spinning rotor blades that are rotating around you know at a very very high velocity and obviously if it's anything you know there's gonna be a problem okay extending the refueling probe one zero copy that it's like playing a video game and getting points way to go Air Force rescue when you hit that drogue even in clear weather it's like cool you know we have come it always makes you feel good the crew now has enough fuel to reach the stricken yacht but as they plow on weather conditions deteriorate I do remember having butterflies in my stomach because it was gonna be a challenging mission we become aware that the wings are very gusty the waves are up to 40 feet and we're starting now to realize we're at our limits the youngest of the crew Jim Mayola has never flown in weather this bird I just got out of school very green graduated you know just a less than a year before so I was very new very green brookey nervous a little two hours in Air Force rescue one one zero reaches the stranded yachtsman can afford rescue one 1:02 air for rescue tonight any behalf visual contact I don't like a look at this days and this is where he got Dyson because the sale had been ripped off the mass was pretty much straight up and now the seas were were very very rough and the winds were were very strong again this is guy in the bow you look right to me like a rubber ducky in the bathtub you just getting splashed around or knocked around the plan is for Joan and Rick to rope down into the sea then Jim will hoist them all back to safety but in this weather it won't be an easy pickup it sounds quite simple let's send a cable down somebody grabs it and they get up inside the helicopter it is not even remotely close to that easy I have no problem putting PJs in that type of environment they are extremely good swimmers extreme physical conditioning no concern at all that they would be able to swim over to the boat and get this guy off the boat the big concern was getting everybody back into the helicopter put two PJ's in the water and we can't get them on now we have three survivors that we have to deal with it's Jim's responsibility to winch everybody safely back to the chopper past it's his call whether or not they go for the rescue and one of the big problems is with the hoist cable it'll act like a cutter in literally cut through you know arm cut off arms or worse meat wrapped on that person's neck literally decapitate it's too risky I can't do it it was a tough decision it really was we went all the way out to try to get this guy up and just I didn't think I could do it okay let's head back that was the first mission I was on where you know we had to actually turn around and say no to it that was a very disheartening experience collisions too poor to execute rescue over but it was the right decision it's it's not all like Hollywood you know the hero doesn't always come out alive and everything works out fine I thought that that took a lot of courage for Jim to speak up to be right there looking at that survivor ready to go the most junior person on the crew spoke up and said I don't think we can do this mission Air Force rescue one one zero heads back leaving the yachtsman to wait for a ship rescue but home is still 450 kilometers away and the super storm is building like throwing gasoline on a fire colliding storm fronts re-energizing an old hurricane to become a cyclone of epic proportions these are tough conditions for refueling but Dave must take on fuel if he's to get the crew back to base we came up on our fourth and final layer refueling and that's when the weather went from bad to horrendous in almost the blink of an eye I mean we just knew that we were in for a hell of a ride we did not know that we were flying inside basically a hurricane force tossed or this is the worst weather conditions I had ever flown in and there isn't anything you can do about it you can't tell God to turn the weather off dave has never refueled in weather conditions this severe and I really had to fly this thing very aggressively they'll shoot 50 other there's plenty of dangerous you could bump into the 130 catastrophic failure fall out of the sky okay we need to get this over with fast you can bump into the hose with the rotor blades you lose rotor blades and basically fall on the sky you know helicopter crashes uncontrolled crashes are not normally survivable [Music] there was turbulence that you know it was really rocking us left and right up and down any which way you can imagine we were hanging on for dear life guys are vomiting the airplane being buffeted you know plus or minus 100 foot I'm trying to go down it's going up fuel is running low it's critical that we get it there's no place else to go to put the helicopter down other than the ocean there's still 150 kilometres from land who the hell is it gone and he can't even see the refueling plane through the clouds couldn't hide from my own guys they saw me up close and personal and what I was up against trying to get this damn probe in this in his robe yeah there were a few few choice words that came out of my mouth inside the concrete there's no that about the cloud ceiling is dropping going down to 500 air Morse code we're doing a lot of suggestions turning in a different heading different direction climbing down all different situations to find clearer air so we can get gas and get home we'd like to try this in 500 feet now you takes the chopper lower to get below the storm but the turbulence only gets worse we've been doing this for more than half an hour well now I knew we were crossing that line that things were beyond our control that we may not get fuel and once I realized that the the thought of ditching a helicopter became a reality and that was actually the most frightful period for me of that whole mission was that thought to realize we may have to ban in a helicopter Elden till 490 Dave knows he may only have one more chance to connect with the refueling drogue and save his crew five minutes of fuel remaining at that point my low-level fuel lights begin flashing now it's decision time we don't get this fuel we're all going swimming dave has run out of time he faces the hardest decision of his life there was no option left if I continue to use that fuel thinking of my own ego that I can do this that I can make this you know that could have killed everybody become saved the chocolate but he might be able to save his crew with the last drops of fuel Dave takes the chopper down to let them bail out okay listen up we are ditching this chopper Jim compared the life raft John and Rick get ready to jump the pressure to make that decision had to be enormous there was no objection from the crew but he wasn't asking okay guys this dude I was scared I didn't think we were gonna survive it was something that I don't think everybody really believed was happening even though it was actually happening so when he said ditching I didn't think I could do it Bethan he was more of a being scared out of my mind we're just minutes of fuel remaining the crew prepares survival equipment and the lifeless place souls on board okay I'm coming to the Hager I want everyone out of here Dave hovers just above the crest of the waves to let the crew bail out the waves now are a lot bigger than what they had been when we were trying to get the guy in sailboat day he was now so close he runs the risk of a high way of taking the chopper out we're running on fumes it's time to go it could be seconds before we're going into water my number one engine flames out of me I'm hovering on one engine I could actually hear the turbines going down I knew he's gonna fall out of the sky at any moment they must time their jump to the split second to hit the crest of a wave if you mistime your jump and hit the trough of a wave you're looking at falling 70 feet so hitting the water at 72 feet would be like hitting concrete but they must jump now the chopper has only seconds of fuel left we're running on fumes it's time to go Rick will be first to go if he mistimes his jump he could fall 20 meters into the trough of a wave and kill himself he looked like a spring coiled ready to jump I don't recall him ever taking his eyes off of the ocean he never looked at me Rick vanishes and John gets ready to jump I was looking out the aircraft at the water I couldn't tell exactly when to jump because I couldn't tell the difference between the crest of the wave in the trough the way I remember having this thought oh my god this is a long way down I think I ended up going in facing the sky I was completely out of body position I know they were going to be consequences but this is not the ideal way to enter the water now there's only a few drops of fuel left go down this was a bad situation the likelihood of surviving it is extremely slim only Dave and Jim are left on board I pushed out the raft the raft blew up but then Paulson it just went black in the wrath literally just kind of blew away stunned by the ferocity of the storm Jim can't bring himself to jump I just sat back on the Florida helicopter Dathan I was back there unaware Dave gets ready to ditch once I realized that my crew had exited the helicopter I moved to the distance that I felt was safe that I would not put the aircraft down on any of my crew members and I simply waited for the number two engine flameout my mind was thinking in terms of seconds what had to be done sequentially one second after the other without a thought for his own safety Dave flies on a safe distance from his crew I felt the day having a safe helicopter and I didn't think he would survive the bitching Dave's out of luck the second engine flames out body of the helicopter hit it was a boom boom instantaneous a two-fold action instantly the blades contacted the water and that's when it got really violent it was like someone took the helicopter itself and just lifted up and smashed it into water the water came in and instantly flushed me out of the cabin the helicopter immediately filled with water [Music] I mean the only thought was to get out of the aircraft immediately but Dave's duel is jammed and I'm thinking to myself this door is not gonna open [Music] when I surfaced on the ocean the waves were huge up to 100 foot the winds were so strong you know basically biting into your face thing [Music] Dave takes hardly a gulp of air before the waves suck him under again now I'm in this you know huge wash machine of tremendously large waves very intense battling the terrifying waves dave has no idea if the rest of his crew have survived but close by Jim has reached the surface and is struggling in the freezing water I was under long enough where I had it I took in some water I had to vomit it up and I got to the surface like whoa what the heck just had and then the waves immediately start start hitting once you know that the Shivering started which was pretty quickly once I went in through water it went from a mild shivering to a severe and yeah you really that's all you're concentrating you're tensed up your your body is just you know getting this lay it's like a hammering effect and you really can't think of anything else except you know being cold I began to yell and then I hear you go back and it yo and and the yos got louder and louder in louder and louder and it happened to be Jimmy Olli well we he and I linked up together it was a feeling of elation we had somebody to share this dire condition that we were both in and I grabbed onto his harness Brad dawn to that because I wasn't losing him but the elation is short-lived when Dave notices that something is wrong and I realized immediately that he did not have his exposure soon he was already cold in his desperation to release the life raft Jim has failed to put on his survival suit the sea is a numbing ly cold 12 Celsius his life expectancy is just a few hours I was very concerned that without that suit on he's he's definitely not going to survive as long as I am Dave offers his hood risking his own chances of survival but buying his crewmate valuable time and I put my hood on his head just to help him out you know to maintain any body warmth for him Dave and Jim on their own as far as they know the rest of the crew are dead I got but 400 meters away John Spillane is trying to hang on to life I don't recall hitting the water I remembered just evolving into this state of awareness where I realized I am in the ocean [Music] things start to come back to me oh we just bailed out of the helicopter we're on a rescue mission we ran out of fuel the next thing I recognize is I'm experiencing a lot of pain john has fallen a terrifying 20 meters into the trough of a wave hitting the water at that height is like hitting concrete his body is shattered both wrists four ribs and his left leg are broken he's ruptured a kidney bruised his pancreas first blood vessels in both eyes fluid is messing around his lungs making breathing agony I'm desperate I'm in a desperate situation I'm being battered by the ocean I'm being pelted by the water I'm having a very hard time keeping it out of my mouth I'm swallowing it I'm vomiting every every few minutes I would hear the rumble coming from the bottom I was hearing a wave that couldn't support itself I was just crumbling under its own weight and rolling down its own face I could hear the white water coming [Music] would take me under and it would hold me on there for 30 seconds at a time maybe even more my body just went wherever it wanted me to go I couldn't actually swim for the surface I didn't know where it was but the way I thought my end would come that night is that I would no longer have the energy to get my mouth high enough above the world to breathe which means ultimately I would have drowned and that was revealing to me I was startling I was something I hadn't ever seen happening before where I would drown on the surface John fears drowning but across the waves it's the cold which threatens to kill Jim hold in there Jim shivering was just got to be so severe that he just felt like so listen to punch me like a jackhammer in effect in my back between my shoulder blades it's only thanks to Dave's hood that Jim has come this far but his core body temperature is now dangerously low and hypothermia is taking hold I wasn't sure that Jim would survive overnight do you just tell by looking at him you know things weren't registering with him and he was not content with you jim's organs are shutting down when the cold could stop his heart at any moment the hypothermia just kind of took everything I had it just that so that was my focal point that I was just shivering you know unbearably Jim at least has Dave to comfort him but suffering from the injuries of his 20 meter for John has no one but just when there seems no hope he spots the life raft throw him from the chopper when I saw the raft it was coming to me I knew that I needed to get into it I didn't know where it came from I still didn't know how I had gotten there and there was no longer time to think about that I just knew I had to get into this rat John grabs onto the raft but he can't get into it it's upside-down while I'm hanging on to it I realized it's upside down I can't get into it but the floor the rest is actually above the surface and I'm being dragged by as I'm thinking about this the wind and the waves flipped the raft over it takes me with it and flips me right into it I was elated I actually couldn't believe my luck at that point I had a flat on the floor mount spread-eagle trying to hold this raft down protecting him from the storm the raft will keep John alive till rescue arrives I remember feeling it wobbling with the water underneath me and I was feeling to me [Music] the raft will offer refuge from the storm for John until help arrives but his luck doesn't last another enormous wave capsizes the raft again it took me completely by surprise and I ended up back in the water and they weren't glowing and cartwheeling away from me the relief that I'd had for those short moments was over was gone [Music] crippled by his injuries and lost in hundreds of square kilometers of ocean John's chances of survival are zero after I lost contact with the raft there wasn't anything else for me to do but to survive just to stay afloat the wetsuit I was wearing helped me to do that and the life preserver but helped me to do that but I will say it was clear to me that ultimately I was going to drown I was scared I don't think I'm gonna make it until daylight I don't think I can last that long I could feel my condition deteriorated thinking about my wife and our unborn child my wife giving birth without me being there and raising what would ultimately be a son without me ever meeting him I'm experiencing abject misery and sadness there actually came a point where I started to think it would be easier to lay back and just breathe in this water lay back and just let happen whatever's gonna happen here but just when there seems no hope John spots a distant light I couldn't see that well though because my retinas had hemorrhage from the impact I had a blue haze across my eyes but every once in a while I would see the stroke so I'm thinking that there could be human beings attached to those strollers and that's a good thing but the dilemma was if I can do anything about closing this distance do I really want to be there [Music] that was a real dilemma I don't want to close this gap because I don't want to be there and die in their presence I will want to be by myself and then I had this recollection from survival training their strengths and numbers stay together as long as you can I couldn't ignore that Jones signals his position with his scuba light and starts to swim but a kilometer of ferocious waves and hurricane winds separate him from the strobe light with such severe injuries he doesn't know if he can make it we saw a light in this light got brighter and brighter you know what the hell is it it sits on the surface and it's not a life raft and I just kept swimming and swimming after an hour I noticed I was closing the gap I was getting closer to the stroller but as it got closer and closer and took a long time to get to us I realized it was Johnson Blaine and I think it was probably another hour before I actually got there you okay Jim and I were both elated that we had in a John with us it was a great feeling but we could see the pain on his face of how badly he was injured so he was in tremendous pain very very bad pain [Music] my focus shifted for me to jim's predicament seeing the hood on Jimmy Olli I felt was a very brave act that simple I knew that that was decreasing Dave's of survivability but I also recognize what a tremendous help it was to to Jim that was increasing his survivability Jim can't control his own body the muscles violently spasm in a bid to generate warmth but he's on a rapid downward spiral while I was getting wasted by these waves and you know freezing you know with the hypothermia the only real thought I had it is silly is with who's taking care of my dog like I hope someone gets my dog so that you know they can walk or feed her once the rescuers now the elite crew of Air Force rescue 1 1 0 are in desperate need of rescue themselves there was one particular way that drove us under and seperated us and as that happened I saw the look of terror in John's eyes he was very very concerned that if he didn't link back up with us that his chances of survival were not good and to see that look of terror on one of your brother's faces that was a wake-up call to me of just how bad he was but Dave manages to pull his men back together he's fighting heroically to keep them alive having two individuals with me both of whom were worse than I was Jim's body temperature and John's injuries you know they needed me that was a very scary moment because we almost didn't get back together even if a rescue can be mounted the storm has driven them over 30 kilometers from the point they ditched their helicopter there now just dots lost in the Atlantic if Jim isn't rescued soon he will die and with each hour the storm is intensifying I was facing the facts and they were brutal at this point I felt the odds were against us I believed we wouldn't survive with no rescue in sight they faced a lingering death lost in the freezing Atlantic waters Dave struggles to keep Jim alive but he's in the final stages of hypothermia he's losing consciousness stay with his vital organs are shutting down the hypothermia kind of made me in and out of awareness of what was going on I was concerned that Jim would go into a coma but that's that's what how he would eventually go he was with Arjun he was slow Jim was slowly fading away but just when there seems no hope also we saw lights kind of like reflecting against the clouds their Mayday calls have been picked up a Coast Guard helicopter has battled 150 kilometer an hour winds to reach them the cabin door went open on the right side and their hoist operator actually was sending out a rescue basket on the end of the horse cable all right this is great we'll be done soon it was this incredulous feeling that we actually overcame the odds here yeah but as I watched him I can see his altitude fluctuating [Music] at times it looked like he was going to be driven right into the sea at some point I know Dave verbally yelled to me that he didn't think he would be trying this implying that if he had been flying that helicopter he didn't think he would be trying he was right there he could see us but he couldn't get us based on the the the intense rural conditions out there the Coast Guard helicopter battles for an hour trying to rescue them before accepting defeat [Music] it was brave but futile attempt to recover us but kudos to those guys they gave it all they had for a long time until they had to leave to return to base to refuel [Music] these guys could pick us up you know really there's no one left the last survivors of Air Force rescue 1 1 0 have fought to stay together now they will die together we can't fight mother nature you know she has her own plans for you I'm wondering what point will I be so exhausted that I can't resist anymore they can't fight to get air and that was frightening because I knew that point was going to come it was very sad and frustrating because I wasn't ready I needed more time they needed me and I was going to do whatever I had to do to you know make it through get them through this get us through even to this day you know I wonder how they've had such strong hope I don't I don't think he doubted that he was gonna see the rest of his life he was going to see the next day in the day after that then we saw lights again and I said to the guys I said that's a ship [Music] yeah we could actually see it and we could send its color okay he was white it was a beautiful white ship huge big white ship and then they began to fire off elimination players it's the Coast Guard ship tomorrow its crew risking capsizing to rescue them [Music] the hope was back that's the way out that's our ticket home love those guys Tamaroa Coast Guard all the way we by the grace of God were bound together that night of October 30th 1991 and we will forever be bound together based on that incident it took Jimmy only a year to recover from the ordeal John Spillane underwent a number of operations for his injuries Dave Rivera survived the incident unscathed they came aboard to find copilot grampa Shah had already miraculously been picked up although you're glad you're alive we're still missing a crew member you know and that's when it really hit home that you know this there's still somebody out there and you know that was rank you know the Coast Guard Cutter continued through the night looking for wrecked and continue through the next day well they never found him and that was particularly hard for ten days a combined forces operation searched almost a hundred square kilometers of ocean for Rick his body was never found it's so sad that he actually experienced what we all knew was a possibility that he died doing this job he was willing to take the risk so I'm happy for him in that sense that he got to live that life and but I'm very sad that he was one of the people who wasn't able to survive his career [Music] he left behind four daughters the youngest just two weeks old he died while attempting to save somebody else's life what better way to go I'm very very unfortunate but that's who Rick was Rick was a warrior Rick was dedicated to rescuing people that's what he did the perfect storm as it became known lasted seven days cause 200 million dollars of damage to the East Coast and killed 12 people all four crewmen returned to active duty the Sailor they've been sent to rescue was picked up by the Coast Guard the following day there's a parish decree that ends with the motto these things we do that others may live [Music]

Channel: Wonder

Views: 2,106,224

Rating: 4.832232 out of 5

Keywords: wonder, i shouldn't be alive, i shouldn't be alive full episodes, wonder i shouldn't be alive

Id: 7onvyMmTNz4

Length: 48min 3sec (2883 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 12 2019