A hang glider takes off from the launch zone on top of Dog Mountain in August 2018.
A hang glider who was forced to land on the far side of Riffe Lake Friday was rescued by helicopter in the early hours of Saturday morning after being unable to find his way back through the forest.
“Unfortunately, it was just a series of totally avoidable errors,” said Tina Jorgensen, a veteran of the Dog Mountain hang-gliding hotspot above the lake.
Jorgensen and others were at the site Friday when rain prompted a pair of pilots to land. A third pilot who had been seen in the air couldn’t be found, and the other two said the believed he’d flown across the lake to Elk Mountain. The flight from Dog Mountain to Elk Mountain is a common one for hang gliders, and usually a return trip is made without landing.
On Friday, however, clouds began to to build up behind Dog Mountain, making the journey inadvisable. The west wind became an east wind.
“He had to fly upwind back to Dog,” Jorgensen said. “He wasn't high enough and didn’t have experience to get back out.”
Eventually, Jorgensen and her husband Larry established cell phone contact with the pilot, who said he had landed at the base of Elk Mountain across the lake. Though the flight had not been advisable under the conditions, many pilots over the years have been forced to put down on the far side of the lake.
“The good thing about Dog is there's lots of places to land, and you are safe if you make a mistake like that,” Jorgensen said.
The Jorgensens began guiding the pilot to an old, washed-out road where he could hike out. They only found out much later that he had been about four miles up the lake from the spot at the base of Elk Mountain where they thought he’d landed. When they learned where he was, they made plans to pick him up with their two-seat ultralight airplane.
“He said, ‘I've already contacted search and rescue, and I'm gonna have a helicopter come get me,’” Tina Jorgensen said.
According to Lewis County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Dusty Breen, local emergency responders were notified at 6:42 p.m. Friday that a glider pilot was stranded and lost. The department contacted the Emergency Management Division of the Washington Military Department, which organizes search-and-rescue resources throughout the state.
It was determined that a foot patrol would put volunteers at risk trying to get through the forest after dark. Responders discussed trying to reach him by boat, but lake levels were too low to make that practical.
“My understanding is he was unsure of his location and how to get out,” Breen said. “They decided the aircraft was most efficient resource-wise. … They felt that the helicopter was least likely to jeopardize other people and get the mission accomplished.”
EMD was able to line up a U.S. Army helicopter, according to Chris Long, Washington State Search and Rescue coordinator, which picked up the stranded pilot around 3 a.m. According to Breen, the pilot refused medical aid and spent the night in a nearby hotel room.
“Unfortunately, one of the things we deal with a lot in our county — because we have nice rural areas that are fun to visit and recreate — is we have a lot of people who have different expertise levels,” Breen said.
Jorgensen said she was surprised to learn search-and-rescue had been called, since they had been in contact with the pilot, who was not injured and in no immediate danger.
“We don't want to make headlines,” she said. “The whole thing could have been easily avoided. He just made mistakes. … We don't want people to think we're crazy or it’s death-defying or the magical weather just did it to him.”
On Tuesday, Jorgensen said, the pilot and a friend were planning to launch kayaks into Riffe Lake, with an inflatable raft in tow, to attempt to retrieve the disassembled glider, which had been left on the far side of the water. Publicly posted Facebook photos from another account show two individuals making a trek similar to the one Jorgensen predicted, with seemingly successful results.
The friend who posted the photos did not respond to a request for comment. The Chronicle is withholding the pilot’s name until he can be given the opportunity to share his version of events.
