Rescue of the Bounty: Disaster and Survival in Superstorm Sandy

by Michael J. Tougias

  Doug Faunt, in his cabin forward of Walbridge’s, put on an extra layer of warm clothing before he got into his suit.

  Claudene Christian, in the next cabin, stepped into a size small.

  Jessica Hewitt reminded people around her to strap the legs tight with the Velcro straps around the ankles so that walking would be easier.

  Scornavacchi felt lost in his massive medium-size suit.

  But it still was not time to climb up to the dangers of the weather deck. That moment came after three o’clock in the morning, when the crew was shin deep in sloshing water.

  • • •

  Wes and Mike continued guiding the C-130 through the turbulence, hoping that each time they tried to reach Bounty the ship would still be afloat.

  “Bounty, this is the coast guard C-130, do you copy?”

  “This is Bounty, we hear you loud and clear.”

  “We can finally see you, and we are going to relay your predicament back to headquarters. In the meantime we’re going to see about getting pumps to you and locate ships that can head to your position.”

  Wes played through the procedure of dropping pumps to a vessel taking on water. Normally that is done from an altitude of two hundred feet, a height from which the pump has a realistic chance of making it to the vessel. The pump is in a watertight canister with a long trailing line. If all goes as planned, the pump lands in the water and the line lands on the vessel’s deck, where a sailor can grab it and haul the pump to the ship.

  Wes factored in the sixty-five-knot winds and the enormous waves and quickly concluded that with Bounty a pump would have small chance of being recovered by the crew and would probably add a whole new element of danger for everyone involved. If Wes took the plane down to two hundred feet, he risked getting his entire crew killed, and he immediately dismissed that notion. He might get lucky by releasing the pump from five hundred feet, but if a Bounty crew member scrambled out on the steeply angled deck to retrieve the line, very possibly the sailor would be swept overboard. “I worried the pump would make things worse,” recalled Wes. “The seventy-pound pump might plummet directly onto the deck like a missile, crashing through the planking and opening yet another spot for water to enter the vessel.” Adding to his concern was that the heavy rain made visibility of the ship impossible until they were directly over it.

  Wes made another pass over the ship, and when it briefly came into view, he noticed that the starboard-side rail was now completely submerged. He made up his mind about the pump. Because Bounty was taking on a foot of water an hour, Wes knew it needed a much larger pump than he had on the plane and probably several, operating simultaneously, to make a dent in the incoming water. Dropping one small pump would barely have an impact, and it wasn’t worth risking the life of a Bounty crew member’s racing out onto the pitching deck to grab a line. Wes relayed his decision back to Sector North Carolina, and they agreed.

  “Bounty, this is CG C-130, how copy?”

  “Loud and clear.”

  “In these winds it would be next to impossible to get a pump to you, and even if we got the trailing line on your deck, retrieving this one small pump would put the life of your crew members in jeopardy.”

  “Roger, we understand.”

  “What are your plans?”

  “We are in survival suits. We have multiple EPIRBs and have two large life rafts. We hope to make it until daylight, when we can more safely get in the rafts. Each raft will have an EPIRB and a handheld VHF radio, but we can’t guarantee they will work if they get wet. Are there any ships on the way?”

  Wes had to tell them the truth. “Negative.”

  After an awkward silence, Mike Myers spoke with Svendsen, reviewing the plans for abandoning ship safely.

  When the conversation was over, Sector North Carolina asked Wes for his ORM (Operational Risk Management, a numerical score to determine the risk factor to the aircraft and crew if they stayed on scene). Before Wes responded, he used his internal communication system to ask the entire crew how they were feeling. Dead silence. Wes suspected the crew were having difficulty with the turbulence, but their temporary silence confirmed it. Then one crew member said, “Sir, I know a few of us are feeling pretty sick.”

  “Roger,” said Wes. “We’re going to climb back up in altitude where the gusts are not as powerful. We will still have excellent comms with the sailing vessel.”

  Wes notified Sector that his risk analysis was that the crew and aircraft were taking a beating, but that they could continue the mission. His numerical score, based on factors such as airsickness, fatigue, visibility, turbulence, and the flight time, put him “in the red,” which was cause for concern. Sector then confirmed that because the vessel’s command thought they could make it to morning, it would be best to have the helicopter launch just before dawn. It was simply too dangerous to send a helo into Sandy at night. “Roger,” said Wes. “But remember, we are going to need at least two helicopters, with sixteen people in life rafts.”

  Mike eased the aircraft back up to seven thousand feet and continued the racetrack pattern over the Bounty. Every now and then either Mike or Wes would ask Bounty for an update. Conditions were more stable at the higher altitude, and Wes hoped his crew, who were being knocked around in the belly of the plane, would get a better handle on their motion sickness. He knew they weren’t going home anytime soon.

  After fifteen or twenty minutes, the commander decided it was time to descend to five hundred feet for a visual on Bounty. He hoped to see the ship listing at the same angle as before, but instead the vessel was farther on its side, with more green water sweeping over the deck. The ship’s three massive masts were not all that far from the tops of the waves.

  Wes became increasingly anxious about Bounty’s chances of making it to morning. Adding to his concern, Svendsen asked if any helicopters had launched. Wes responded that the helicopters would arrive in the morning if possible, that the hurricane winds were extremely dangerous for a helo to fly into at night and try a rescue.

  It was now about 4:00 a.m. and the commander felt that conditions were deteriorating on Bounty faster than the sailors had anticipated. Wes decided it would be prudent to call Air Station Elizabeth City and tell Todd Farrell at the Operations Center exactly what was going on and paint a complete picture of the conditions so the helicopter pilots would have as much information as possible.

  To Wes’s surprise a helicopter copilot named Jane Peña picked up the phone rather than Todd. Wes explained, “Things are getting worse on board the vessel; before too long there will probably be people in the water.”

  He had Jane’s full attention—she was part of the ready crew that would launch if need be. Wes described the powerful wind gusts and the three-story waves crashing in confused seas. As they ended the conversation, Wes added, “We are going to need another C-130 out here. We’re running low on fuel. They should launch as soon as possible in case the worst happens.”

  Jane hung up the phone and looked at both Todd Farrell and Lieutenant Commander Steve Cerveny, who were standing next to her, listening to her side of the conversation. “Wes thinks the sailors might have to abandon ship before dawn. And he needs another C-130 out there ASAP.”

  While Todd got busy coordinating the next plane to launch, Steve said to Jane, “Well, I hope Bounty can make it to morning, but let’s get our aircraft and crew ready to go at a moment’s notice, just in case.” Jane gave a tense nod. This would be her first major helicopter rescue, and the flying conditions would be unlike anything she’d ever remotely experienced. She could feel the excitement and anticipation building in her and hoped they would launch soon.

  • • •

  On board the C-130, Mike Myers talked with Sector. He was asked to relay a message to Bounty and picked up the radio:

  “Another C-130 is coming. Would two P-100 pumps be enough to dewater the ship and keep it afloat?”

  Svendsen responded with a sense of humor, “Two P-100s would be nice, bu
t two P-250s would even be better.”

  Myers sensed that behind the gallows humor Svendsen was deadly serious that only the largest of pumps could even have a chance at saving Bounty. Myers’s heart went out to the mariners, and he stayed on the radio, talking and trying to keep the sailors’ spirits up. Although Mike had only just been qualified to fly C-130s for six weeks, he did have thirteen years of experience flying helicopters, and this offered him a unique perspective of the different emotional involvement that being in a C-130 had compared to a helo. The helicopter crews usually have a much shorter interaction with those in distress: the helo would arrive on scene, locate the target, and execute the rescue as quickly as possible. But now, on board the C-130, Mike would be on scene for hours and had already formed an emotional connection with the crew. “It was painful,” Mike later recounted, “to experience their highs and lows.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  A RUSHED AND URGENT CALL

  Doug Faunt was in the Nav Shack when he heard Walbridge give the order. We only have one way to get on deck, the captain noted, so as many as possible should be on deck.

  Faunt didn’t need more prompting. He began climbing the starboard flight of steps in the companionway.

  Hewitt was right there with him. She had been uncomfortable—feeling trapped—in her immersion suit belowdecks. Adam Prokosh, despite his pain, was with her, climbing.

  John Svendsen was in the Nav Shack, and as his crewmates passed, he called out their names: “Prokosh on deck!”

  One by one, they filed to the weather deck with little hysteria. Still wearing their suits halfway, Cleveland and Groves stood on deck at the Nav Shack entrance, directing traffic toward the windward deck—the high side—some going forward to brace themselves on structures in front of the Nav Shack, others heading aft, toward the life rafts.

  The wind had abated some, to perhaps forty knots, still strong enough to make the rigging sing and roar, to stifle conversation with its volume. But the seas were still huge. With her bowels filled with a heavy ballast of salt water, Bounty rode smoothly. A full moon above lit the edges of the racing clouds, enough light that the crew could see their ship leaning forty-five degrees to starboard, see the waves all around them, as if they were sitting deep in a valley with dark mountains on every side and only the silvery sky above.

  As they made their way to the weather deck, some of the crew members formed a line and handed up the gear that the bosun had assembled in plastic bags, the life jackets that were tied together in orange rafts.

  Walbridge and Svendsen remained in the Nav Shack as the exodus continued. Then the captain asked Anna Sprague, one of the last to go on deck, to help him into the top of his survival suit. He followed her to the weather deck, which slanted up like a steeply pitched roof, and sat down on two yards that had been lashed there to the deck, near his bosun, Laura Groves, waiting for morning to arrive, the time when he would dictate an orderly departure.

  Moments later, Svendsen came on deck. He had been watching the starboard rail. It had dipped under the waves. With so much water in her, Bounty was leaning farther and farther on her side. The chief mate knew his captain wanted to avoid abandoning ship during the night, hoped to conduct that final desertion of his beloved Bounty when daylight would make it safer. But now the caprail was submerged, and Svendsen sensed that the time was at hand.

  Despite the roaring wind, Laura Groves heard it clearly.

  “It’s time to go,” Svendsen told Walbridge.

  The captain did not respond, so the chief mate waited a half minute and repeated his suggestion, his plea.

  Again Walbridge ignored the warning.

  When for the third time in two minutes Svendsen asked Walbridge to order the crew into the life rafts, the captain agreed. Svendsen returned to the Nav Shack to alert the C-130 flying above. The word began to spread across the ship. The crew would launch the two rafts and attempt a controlled descent from the deck.

  It was too late. With a suddenness bordering on petulance, the ship leaned hard to starboard, as if in response to the skipper’s betrayal, dropping its masts in the ocean, bringing its deck to vertical. Anyone not thoroughly braced instantly fell into the sea. Others clung to the nearest fixed object, desperately trying to postpone their own baptism.

  Laura Groves had just helped Dan Cleveland into the top half of his immersion suit when Bounty lurched. There was no space in her awareness between her efforts to secure Cleveland’s safety gear and the instant when she found herself in the ocean.

  Joshua Scornavacchi had settled on the port side of the fife rail around the mainmast, his feet braced on the rail, his back lying on the tilted deck. Claudene Christian was beside him, and she smiled at him. Then she scampered aft, toward another group of crew members. Scornavacchi closed his eyes, and a moment later when he opened them, he saw his fellow sailors hanging like so much laundry from various lines and railings. Scornavacchi himself was standing on the now-horizontal balusters of the fife rail, the once-tilted deck a vertical wall behind him. He worked his way down the deck toward the water and then jumped.

  Prokosh, at the stern behind the helm, saw the big wheel go under the water and thought, This is where I get off. He allowed himself to slide down onto the helm and then jumped toward a clear patch of water, hoping to avoid getting entangled in the rigging.

  Jessica Hewitt had fallen asleep near the helm. She awoke to see water directly before her.

  Jessica Black heard someone yell “She’s going!” and sensed what was happening. She wanted to be in control of her destiny, so she let go and fell into the sea.

  Svendsen, still in the Nav Shack calling the coast guard, was caught by a flood of sea, a waterfall coming into the companionway. He fought against it, made it to the deck. Before him he saw Robin Walbridge, a life jacket strapped over his immersion suit, walking aft—walking, not crawling, because while the deck was vertical, there were horizontal surfaces such as the fife-rail balusters.

  The chief mate found the nearest mast, now horizontal, and climbed along it, away from the deck, away from his captain, away from Bounty.

  • • •

  Just prior to Bounty’s lying on her side, Wes and Mike alternated flying the C-130 above the ship, sometimes flying at five hundred feet to get a visual and sometimes at seven thousand to give their team less of a pounding. The two pilots knew the turbulence was considerably rougher on the crew than on themselves. The pilots were so focused on flying the plane and exchanging information with both Bounty and Sector that it was easy to ignore the stomach-churning dips and rises of the plane. Most of their crew, however, were in standby mode, waiting to see how things played out. If the vessel stayed afloat until the helos arrived, their role would stay modest, but should Bounty sink before dawn, they’d be scrambling with a number of tasks. But for now they had plenty of undistracted time to experience the full nauseating effects of their roller-coaster ride.

  Suddenly at 4:45 a.m. Svendsen’s voice boomed into the cockpit of the C-130. “We are abandoning ship! We are abandoning ship!”

  Wes’s heart skipped a beat. All previous calls had been calm and collected, but this one was rushed and urgent. He grabbed the radio. “Bounty, this is CG 130, tell us what is happening.”

  Silence.

  Chills went down Wes’s back. “Bounty, this is CG 130, how copy?”

  Silence.

  “Bounty, are you getting into life rafts?”

  Dead air.

  Wes switched to another channel. “HMS Bounty, this is coast guard C-130, how copy?

  No response.

  Wes cursed under his breath and made eye contact with Mike. He knew this was not the orderly abandoning of ship everyone had hoped for. Svendsen clearly had just a second to get his distress call out. Something sudden and cataclysmic had happened, and Wes wondered if anyone got off the ship alive.

  Adrenaline shot through every vein of Wes McIntosh, and he had to fight back a surge of nervous energy. He had formed a
bond with the people on Bounty, particularly with Svendsen on the radio. This whole night it’s been just us and the Bounty alone out in this black mess, and now it might be all over. It sure didn’t sound like they had time to get in life rafts. Wes was certain the ship had capsized, but the people could be either in the water or trapped inside the ship.

  The plane was up at seven thousand feet, and while Mike took the controls and started descending, one of the MSOs radioed Sector that Bounty sailors were abandoning ship and communication had been lost.

  Then Wes spoke on the internal communications system to his crew: “They’re abandoning ship. You know what we need to do now.”

  They needed to get life rafts in the water immediately. This is where drop master Joshua Vargo and basic aircrewman Eric Laster earned their pay, no matter how motion sick they were. The two men had trained for months with the Air-Sea Rescue Kit (ASRK), which includes eight-man life rafts and survival bags stuffed with water packs, patches for the life rafts, space blankets, whistles, flares, and strobes. Now they had to drag the equipment toward the rear of the plane where the giant cargo ramp could be lowered. The turbulence caused the men to stagger, and when a particularly strong air gust hit, the floor beneath them fell away and they were airborne, lucky to come down on their feet and not break an ankle.

  Meanwhile, Wes entered data into a computer to help calculate a release point. The emergency equipment would be useless if it landed far from Bounty. The MSOs worked the radio making continuous callouts to the foundering vessel, hoping against all odds for an answer.

  Vargo’s voice came over the internal communication set: “Mr. McIntosh, we have completed our checklist and have the equipment in place.”

  “Roger,” answered Wes. “We are descending to five hundred feet and are depressurizing the plane.”