SURREAL SURVIVAL

PALMER — It was a decision that nearly cost two local men their lives.

Dave Akers, 51, Palmer, sees it as that now, but on July 22, his choice to check out an airstrip at Friday Creek hardly seemed like a life-or-death decision.

As quick as he is to shoulder blame for the accident, he and his passenger are equally quick to give credit elsewhere for their survival.

Akers, looking back on that July flight-seeing trip near Knik Glacier with his friend Gary D. Nall of Wasilla, remembers how beautiful the canyons looked that day. They were headed back to Palmer Airport in the 1953 Cessna 170B, which Akers and his wife restored, when Nall saw the valley formed by Friday Creek. He suggested they fly over.

“No, I’d rather look at a map before I go up there,” Akers recalled telling his friend, before adding, “It sure is pretty.”

The beguiling scenery lured him to disregard his better judgment, and he turned the plane to follow the creek. It was about 7:30 p.m.

Akers recalled taking his lightly loaded Cessna up to 3,500 feet, where he could see both of the box canyons before them. He went up another 1,000 feet.

“I continued to fly and sightsee up the canyon and I spotted the airstrip,” Akers said. He remembered another pilot telling him about the airstrip and many bears in the area.

The experienced pilot and airplane mechanic went up to 5,000 feet.

“I decided to shoot an approach at the airstrip,” Akers said. “I flew past the airstrip and did a down canyon approach. I hit the throttle, climbed out at 500 to 600 feet per minute, turned around and made an up-canyon approach.

“I hit the throttle and started to climb out at 500 to 600 feet per minute. Shortly after that, the aircraft went into its descent at 200 feet per minute,” he continued. “I checked the fuel selector, carb heat, mixture, throttle and rpms in the green. I was making good power but still in descent.”

He made a turn to the left to avoid the terrain, which was sloping away from the four-seater.

“At that point I did a complete scan on the controls and settings as before and announced to my passenger we were going to crash,” Akers said. “Gary will tell you, he didn’t believe me.”

Nall, 46, who was supposed to move to Houston, Texas, two days later, thought his friend was giving him another real-life scenario to consider so that when Nall becomes a pilot, he’ll have experience beyond his flight hours.

“My first thought was, ‘This is a drill,’” Nall said from his new home in Texas, where he works for Chevron. A millisecond later, he knew better.

Akers said he reached over, pulled down all of his flaps to reduce his speed and correct the pitch. The last speed he saw was 38 mph.

“I heard the stall horn about three seconds before impact,” Akers remembers.

He could see Nall leaning forward, trying to see around a post in the plane. Before he could warn Nall to sit back, the white and maroon tail-dragger made contact with the mountain.

“We hit,” Nall said. “We hit hard. I never hit so hard in my life. It hurts thinking about it.”

It could have been worse, Nall said, though not perhaps and have them to tell the story. He praised his pilot for doing what he could to lessen the impact.

“He kept the plane in a landing attitude,” Nall said. “The landing gear absorbed a lot of that impact.”

The Cessna’s landing gear buckled, the right wing hit the terrain and spun the plane 180 degrees clockwise. The underside of the plane’s nose dug into the tundra as it came around, and the plane lurched to a stop.

Looking back, Akers said he can recount moment by moment the 20 to 30 seconds that passed between the time he knew his plane was in trouble and the impact.

“I was never afraid at all,” he said.

What Akers cannot recall is the minutes after the crash. Akers was knocked senseless, his eyes rolled back in his head.

Nall said he yelled at his friend but Akers didn’t respond.

“I could smell gasoline,” Nall said. “I knew we had to get out of there.”

Akers’ door was ajar, so Nall crawled across Akers and out of the plane, then turned to unbuckle his friend from his lap belt. The shoulder harnesses were sheared.

“That will give you an idea of the impact force,” Akers said.

Nall dragged Akers from the plane and helped him up hill about 25 feet. He could see the gas gushing from the cowling of the plane below.

“The next thing I know I am on all fours, staring at the tundra, in a lot of pain,” Akers recalled.

Akers had severe bruising on his throat, a broken collar bone and ribs, a pulled sternum and muscle damage to his right arm and shoulder, along with an assortment of bruises and cuts. Nall was bleeding profusely from two large gashes on his forehead. “I was just pouring blood down from my injuries,” Nall said.

“There was blood everywhere,” Akers recalled.

Akers located the 121.5 ELT (emergency location transmitter), and flipped it on.

“I knew the signal would only be going straight up because of the terrain,” he said. And no one knew where they were. “I told my wife we were going to Knik and we deviated.”

They opened the survival kit: sleeping bags, tarps, peanut butter, a first-aid kit, garbage bags, fire starters, a plastic whistle-compass, a shop rag to use for a wound compress and an old beach towel that became a wrap for Nall’s head injury and a sling for Akers’ arm. Cheap rain pants were pressed into service to cover Nall’s cut-offs.

What they didn’t have was a cell phone or a gun; those were back at the airport in Akers’ pickup. They did have a knife and three emergency flares.

This is the first of a two-part series. Look for part two Sunday.

Packing for survival

After surviving a plane crash in July, a Palmer man has a new concept of what constitutes emergency supplies.

Dave Akers, who crashed his Cessna 170B near Friday Creek with his friend and passenger Gary Nall, had an emergency kit on his plane.

“It was not enough stuff,” Akers said. “I’m quite inspired to make an emergency pack and it will be quite different from what I see in most aircraft.”

It will be in his aircraft each time he flies, Akers said, even if it is just a short jaunt.

Akers also had an ELT when he crashed, but the older models used by Akers and many other small aircraft pilots are no longer monitored by satellite. According to the FAA, aircraft with only 121.5 MHz or 243.0 MHz ELTs on board must depend on either a nearby air traffic control facility receiving the alert signal or an overflying aircraft monitoring those frequencies to detecting the alert.

Alaska’s terrain has made the ELTs of limited worth, pilots say, but to replace them with the newer satellite-based system is very expensive.

Akers said he was going to purchase one of the new personal locators, a Spot-Me device, a few days before the flight, but was told they were going on sale and he should wait. He said he’ll have one before he next ventures into the wilderness.

Nall, too, urged all travelers to be prepared for Alaska’s harshness.

“Don’t take it for granted, even on the smallest trips,” he said.

Akers said he may finally do what he’s threatened for years and market real emergency kits for private pilots. He said he is going to call it The BTDT Kit — The Been There, Done That Kit.

Here is Akers’ emergency kit list:

SUGGESTED EMERGENCY KIT

1. Water-tight carrying case (dry pack)

2. Signaling and lighting

Flashlight/head lamp

Light sticks

Batteries (not installed)

Whistle

406 ELT, SPOT, personal tracking system

Emergency strobe

3. Fire and heat

Fire starting equipment (assume it’s cold, raining and windy)

Fire gel

Fresnel lens

Solar blankets or bivy sack

Pocket chain saw

4. Shelter and personal protection

Sleeping bag for every passenger

Lip balm

Sunscreen

Orange hooded poncho

Insect repellent

Toilet paper/feminine toiletries

Hat and gloves for every person

High powered gun and ammo

5. Multi-purpose

50 feet of 3/8-inch rope

50 feet of parachute cord

Signal mirror

Gorilla tap

Quality knife

Quality axe

Good compass

Beach towel for every person

Super glue

Multi-tool

6. Water and food

1 jar of peanut butter per 2 passengers

2 energy bars per passenger

1 dry meal per passenger

1 tin cup per passenger

1 foldable 1-quart water bottle per passenger

1 water purification system

1 package water treatment tablets

2 1-quart Ziploc bags per passenger

7. Medical

1 high-quality and complete first aid kit

Sports tape

Ace bandages

Antacid tablets

Tylenol

Ibuprofen

First aid book

Sani-wipes

Note: All emergency equipment should be serviced every year at minimum.