On Monday morning, about 100 people welcomed the first Guardian Flight plane to return to Kake after one of their aircrafts went missing last week. Kake residents greeted the aircraft and those on board with a performance of their national anthem in Tlingit.
Guardian Flight has resumed their air medical transport service in six base locations across Alaska following a 63-hour search for an overdue Guardian King Air 200 medical life flight near Kake.
While services have resumed in Anchorage, Deadhorse, Dillingham, Fairbanks, Ketchikan and Sitka, Guardian Flight base locations in Kotzebue and Juneau will reopen sometime in the future, according Guardian Flight senior vice president of operations Randy Lyman in a prepared statement.
"Guardian Flight recognizes that many crew members want to get back to what they love to do and that is flying those in need of medical attention," said Lyman in a prepared statement. "At the same time, clearly, we are giving crews the tools and all the flexibility that they need to determine whether they feel ready to fly patient transports."
The United States Coast Guard suspended their search two days after an overdue aircraft that was expected in Kake at 6:19 P.M. on Jan. 29. Onboard the aircraft were pilot Patrick Coyle, 63, flight nurse Stacie Rae Morse, 30, and flight paramedic Margaret Langston Allen, 43. Guardian Flight is continuing their own search efforts with help from Temsco Helicopters, Inc. Alaska Claims Service will perform a Sound Navigation and Ranging, or SONAR, naval search near the last reported position of the missing aircraft, according to Lyman in a prepared statement. Guardian Flight is also searching for the onboard flight recorder, commonly referred to as a Black Box, to be used by the National Transportation Safety Board in their investigation.
"While the formal search and rescue effort has been discontinued and we recognize the gravity of the situation, we will continue efforts to recover our friends in order to hopefully reunite them with their beloved families," said Lyman in a prepared statement.
The crew was headed to Kake to perform a medical evacuation when the aircraft went missing. Jim Gregory, a spokesman with Guardian Flight, declined to give further information about the patient, including how the patient was ultimately cared for, because Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act regulations prevents him from disclosing information that would lead to the identify of the individual.
Debris from a plane was located in the water approximately 22-miles west of Kake on the afternoon of Jan. 30, but both the USCG and Guardian Flight couldn't confirm the debris was from the overdue aircraft. Since then, both the USCG and Guardian Flight have stated in prepared releases that the debris appears to be from the Guardian Flight aircraft. No other debris has been located.
The crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Anacapa, home ported in Petersburg, an Air Station Sitka MH-60 Jayhawk crew, the Coast Guard Cutter Bailey Barco and an Alaska Army National Guard UH-60 rescue helicopter were involved with the search of the aircraft. Petersburg Search and Rescue also sent six of its members onboard a harbor security boat the morning after the aircraft was expected in Kake to assist with the search, according to Petersburg Fire Department assistant fire chief Dave Berg.
Alaska State Troopers, Kake Search and Rescue, Wrangell Search and Rescue, Alaska Marine Highway ferries, Anchorage Air Route Traffic Control Center and good Samaritans all contributed to the search effort.
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