Dear Betty,
My deepest sympathy for your recent loss.
Sadly, I was the first person to discover the crash yesterday, August 29 at around 4:30PM Alaska time. The FAA had asked me if I could check the area around Winstanley Lake for any signs of the helicopter that was overdue by 3 hours, when I was on my way to fly a tour through the Misty Fjords National Monument. This lake is very close to the route of flight I was planning anyway. From over the top of the lake I could see something unusual on the lake so I decieded to land and have a better look. What I found was your brothers helicopter turned upsidedown floating on the lake not too far from shore.
Helicopters do not have fixed pontoons generally. However, most of them have pontoons that can be deployed in an emergency. The emergency pontoons were deployed on your brothers helicopter, which was the only resaon the helicopter was still floating on the lake. Another plane landed shortly after me, Dave Doyon. His plane was empty (no passengers) so he decieded to stay and have a look for survivors on the shore. At this time we had no idea how many people were onboard, and if any of them had made it to the shore. About an hour later, Steve Shrum (who flies the Ketchikan Volunteer Rescue Squad plane) came to the lake with a diver. They discovered that there were two bodies inside the helicopter but were unable to get the bodies out of the helicopter as it was getting dark and they needed to fly back to Ketchikan before dark.
There was a GPS found floating on the lake (a navigational tool) which had your brothers flights recorded on it. The last flight time was 1/10 hour or about 1 to 6 minutes of flight time. There was another record which showed his flight from Ketchikan to Winstanley lake. From this information it would stand to reason that he was attempting to leave Winstanley Lake when the crash occurred. Also I found fresh footprints at the Winstanley Lake US Forest Service cabin site. These may or may not have been from your brother if he had spent the night at the cabin. His departure from Ketchikan on August 28th, as reported by the FAA, 03:49 PM is Alaska time, which is one hour earlier than Seattle. So he departed from here Wednesday afternoon.
As for why the helicopter crashed in the first place, it is likely that we will never know for certain just what happened there at Winstanley Lake as is the case with most accidents of this nature. It could have been bad weather or a mechanical failure or even a physical probelm of some kind that caused the copter to crash.
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