-Jon and Larry

After we finished talking to him, Kim and I Said goodbye to Jim and drove east back toward Lincoln, towards our next stop.  We got there later in the afternoon and walked into the Lincoln Police station.  I sat on a vinyl couch in the small foyer across from Kim waiting for Larry to receive us.  It was a little creepy.  I had been a law abiding citizen at least since my days in the Corps, but here I kept wondering if anyone recognized me.  I knew it was impossible, but it still felt a little unnerving.

            Larry, dressed in the olive drab uniform of the Lancaster County Sheriff, eventually came up and greeted us.  He was a Deputy from the old school.  There was no nonsense coupled with an easy and casual mosey about him.  He was a man who had been around and seen many, many things alien to most of us.  But he remembered that night, and here I was.  His handshake was warm and firm.  I felt immediately at ease with him.

             As we walked toward his office, he stopped at a picture on the wall and tapped it.

            “That’s her,” he said.  “That’s the same chopper I went after you guys in.”

            I studied the photo of the bubble nose chopper with Larry as a much younger man standing in front of her.  It was a strange thing to see, considering the circumstances. 

Kim and I sat down in Larry’s office and a few minutes later Jon came down.  He introduced himself and they began to tell us the story of that night.  The two of them had been friends for many years, since the time Larry began to fly for the Lancaster County Sheriff and Jon had become a Lincoln PD cop. 

Larry had flown Piper Cherokees for the sheriff for years before he segued into choppers.  He flew prisoners all over the country from jails to courts, dealing with extraditions and such.  He loved to fly, and was a good pilot.  He knew about the Beechcraft Baron, too, and had flown them many times.

“You really had to fly that plane,” he said.  “Especially on instruments, or it’ll get away from you.”  He talked about landing one in IFR conditions at St. Louis once many years ago.

“We got into some rough weather on the approach,” he said.  “I was almost upside down at one point as we came in.”

“But I was the only one who knew,” he said with a wink. 

            After awhile, Jon Morris walked into the room.  He worked in the adjacent section of the Police building and was in his blue Lincoln PD uniform.  He greeted us in the same manner as Larry, and seemed very happy to see us.  Jon had known Jim Nitz since they were both kids.  He had been with the Civil Air Patrol most of his adult life and had seen a lot of missions.  It had been interesting to talk with Jon in the weeks leading up to our trip.  He had sent me an email just prior to me leaving that left me excited.  It read:

            “When we meet, I will tell you why it's important to know as much as you can about this situation as you can.  It will have a much greater meaning later in your life.” 

I had been thinking about those words up to that moment.  It turned out one his wife’s parents were killed in a car accident, and it had bothered her for many years.  She finally went back to the scene and that act became a pivot point in her coming to terms with the event.  Now that was happening to me, although I did not yet know.  Jon was right.  The meaning of me being there was bigger than anything I could have ever anticipated.

            I was distracted for a moment.  Seeing the picture of the chopper on the wall had transported my mind briefly back many years to when I was in grade school. 

I went to school in a small brick building near the outskirts of Lincoln.  Where people who live in Lincoln refer to as “the country.”  The school was what most people would refer to a one room school house, but I took exception to this throughout my youth - it actually had two or three rooms.  The place finally closed in 1979.  Greg Miller, Kevin Anderson, and I were the sum total of the last graduating class.  Now it’s someone’s house.

            Before then, a year or so after the crash, the Sheriff department flew a helicopter into the field behind the school to give us a presentation about the use of helicopters in police work.  The pilot, who was a young and good looking cop, asked at one point if anyone had ever been in a helicopter.  From the back of the knot of kids packed around him, I meekly raised my hand.  I was the only one.

            “What kind of helicopter was it?” the pilot asked.  I didn’t know, I had said, because I was knocked out.  He studied me for a moment and then to my surprise asked me if my name was Styner.  I said yes.

            The pilot, Larry Russell, nodded at me.  “I remember you,” he had said.

The air was near freezing as Larry quickly walked across the dark tarmac that night, tinted dull yellow in the glow of the industrial lights surrounding the airport.  He approached the bubble nose of the Bell 47S helicopter waiting quietly for him.  His baby.  It was the Sheriff’s bird, he knew, but it was really his. 

He unlocked the pilot door and crawled in to begin to conduct his pre-flight checks of the aircraft.  It was a small helicopter that reminded everyone who saw it of the opening of M*A*S*H.  But it was a nice helicopter.  He had set it up military style, and had even equipped it with a beacon locator antenna.  That would come in handy tonight, if he could get close enough.

He was going up to support the CAP search for a downed plane was all he knew.  The CAP was already in route to Salinas County, and he would be coming up behind them.  He had heard that the plane was missing a few hours ago through communications with the Sheriff’s dispatch over his scanner, and had been anticipating that CAP might call to use the chopper. 

He admired the machine as he walked around it, checking the entire craft.  The chopper really was a beautiful bird.  Its big plexiglass bubble nose gave him an excellent view of the world as he rode across the sky in it, making it a true pleasure to do his job.  It let the good guys know that help had arrived and made sure the bad guys didn’t get away.  He felt like no matter what, he always had a good day. 

He wondered how this day would go.

After being thoroughly satisfied with the airworthiness of the chopper, he climbed into the cockpit again to finish the preflight checks, and put his headphones over his ears.  A few seconds later a different Bruce, his observer for the flight, opened the door and climbed in.  Larry had requested him to act as an extra set of eyes.  He’d need them. 

“Ready?” Larry said as Bruce buckled the seat belt around himself.

“Get’er done!”  Bruce said flashing two thumbs up and pulling the headphones onto his head.

Larry flipped the master switch.  The turbines whined as the bird flipped into life. All of the gauges kicked up to normal, like a lean dog, snapping alert and quivering, waiting for the word.  Larry activated the ignition.

With a labored whine, the rotors slowly begin to spin, quickly bursting to life as the big engine fired up, filling the air with the distinctive chopping sound as the blades whirled around. 

“Check, check…nice and cold out there” Larry said over the intercom as he gave another quick look at the gauges.  He gently eased the collective forward as he pulled the throttle arm, and pitched the blades.  The combination of actions gently lifted the little bird effortlessly off of the deck.  Once clear, he revved the engine and launched the bird into the western night, toward the Lancaster/Salinas County line. 

He flipped the frequency knob on the radio to get on the common channel of the 39-99 radio system, which allowed him to communicate with other agencies all over the state.

“CAP-1, this is Sheriff-1,” he said.  “Do you read, over?”

“Sheriff -1, CAP-1” came Jim’s voice.  “Got you Lima-Charlie.  Please report your position, over.”

“Roger, CAP.  I am presently two miles southwest of Lincoln Municipal Airport, heading toward the Lancaster County line.  ETA roughly…fifteen minutes, over.”

“Roger that, Sheriff-1,” came Jim’s reply.  “Be advised that we have report of a distress beacon in that approximate vicinity.  Our CAP plane is in orbit over Crete and trying to lock it down.  Please advise when on station, over.”

“Roger, CAP-1.  I will advise.  Out.”  Jim released the radio button on his stick.  He glanced over at Bruce.

“Give me some of that damn coffee!”  He said over the intercom with a smile.  Bruce grinned and twisted the top off of the thermos.

“After me.”  he said.

Jim stared into the dark as the CAP team raced down highway 77, south off of Interstate 80, toward Crete.  The crash site had to be nearby, but they hadn’t picked up a thing on the DF receiver.  The CAP plane was circling the area above, but had yet to nail down the beacon.  He could hear it all right, he just couldn’t tell which direction it was or how far away.  He certainly couldn’t see it.  The air outside was quiet, and left Jim at times wondering if the ELT was defective somehow.  It wasn’t.

Looking Glass, who was still in the area, was monitoring the beacon, or so they were reporting from their slow flight on the northern horizon.  He knew there was no such thing as a pinpoint location of an ELT signal, but they were usually close.  The EC-135 was so far away that the words 'close to them' could still mean miles off.  Jim hoped that wouldn’t be the case tonight.

If it was, they’d be able to use that helicopter.  He could get close to the ground and support them visually and with his tracking equipment.  He knew the chopper had locating equipment on board, which was both rare and good, but it would only be effective if he got within range of the signal transmission.  The power of his receiver was nothing compared to the C-135.  So for now they just had to guess.  He hoped they guessed well.

The small convoy turned west onto State Route 33 following the banks of the Big Blue River.  After a few more minutes the trucks rolled into Crete.  The little town was quiet, and no one stirred.  Jim decided the best course of action would be to circle to the north and then head south, and if they didn’t pick up the signal, cut east near the tiny town of Kramer, directly adjacent to Crete, hopefully by then the CAP plane or the chopper could get a lock on the signal.

Jim radioed the other teams to follow and headed out on the small roads that ran around the town.  Beside him, Don listened on the headphones of the DF, but only heard silence.