На месте падения в горной седловине - кратер, уже заполнившийся наполовину водой. Они даже не могут сказать, пилот был в самолете в момент падения или нет. Труднодоступный район, сейчас туда пошла наземная техника. Судя по последним высказываниям официалов, надежды практически нет.
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Anchorage Daily News
18 November 2010
Crash area searched for missing F-22 pilot
By CASEY GROVE
(11/18/10 14:41:50)
Dozens of Army and Air Force personnel and vehicles were heading into the Alaska wilderness 100 miles north of Anchorage today to search for the missing pilot from an F-22 Raptor that crashed Tuesday night.
The stealth fighter jet vanished from radar and lost contact with its wingman at about 7:40 p.m. Tuesday. After spotting wreckage Wednesday morning, pararescuemen with the Alaska Air National Guard landed at the crash site.
There was no indication whether the pilot ejected, a military spokesman said. Searchers found no sign of the pilot at the crash site.
"They said it looked like a crater," said Maj. Guy Hayes with the Guard's Rescue Coordination Center. "There was a stream nearby that was creating a lot of water in the crash site."
The pilot was identified as Capt. Jeffrey Haney by the Jackson Citizen Patriot, his mother's hometown newspaper in Michigan. The Air Force would not name the pilot until they found him, spokesmen said. Haney has a wife and two daughters, according to the Citizen Patriot. A records search shows the family lives in Eagle River.
After spending Tuesday night scanning the mountainous area southeast of Cantwell, searchers resumed Wednesday and spotted what looked like the crash site south of the Denali Highway. The crater is in a drainage between two mountains and had partially filled with water, Hayes said.
First they had to get the right gear for hazardous materials from the crashed plane, Hayes said. It's normal to expect fuel and other hazardous material at a plane crash, he said. The searchers were on the ground at the site from 1 or 2 p.m. until dark, Hayes said.
Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson spokesman John Pennell said the plane was not carrying explosives but did have flares and chaff onboard, as well as training rounds.
Air Force, Army and Rescue Coordination Center personnel are helping with the "huge logistical operation" of a ground search for the pilot, Pennell said. The state Department of Transportation is plowing a road in the area -- likely the Denali Highway, which is not maintained during the winter -- to help get equipment to the area as the search moves into a more long-term phase, Pennell said. A convoy of Army and Air Force vehicles was on its way to the area, he said.
The search teams would use helicopters, small tracked vehicles and four-wheel-drive sport utility vehicles to shuttle searchers into the wilderness from a base camp they were setting up Thursday afternoon off of the Denali Highway, a 134-mile mostly gravel road that runs east from near the entrance to Denali National Park and Preserve to Paxson on the Richardson Highway. Wrecker vehicles, forklifts and a bus loaded with people were also en route, Pennell said.
"You're talking hundreds of moving parts, including people. Getting the right people with the right equipment to the right place at the right time," Pennell said. "The logistics are really pretty staggering. You know what Alaska's like. The area's remote, it's rugged, and it's pretty inaccessible."
Alaska Air National Guard helicopters and a four-engine plane continued to search for signs of a fire or the pilot's parachute, Maj. Hayes said.
"We just don't know at all whether or not he ejected or if he's still with the aircraft, so that's why we continue to do the search operations until we find that answer," Hayes said. "We're going to proceed in thinking he's alive until we have a strong reason to believe he might not be."
Temperatures dipped below zero both Tuesday and Wednesday nights, according to the National Weather Service. The pilot would have had survival gear and expert training, said Col. Jack McMullen, commander of the Air Force's 3rd Wing. McMullen and much of the local Air Force community were holding out hope that the pilot would be found alive, he said.
"We have to assume that he's still alive until we find conclusively otherwise," Pennell said. "We're not going to give up on him. As long as there's hope, we're going to continue looking."
There has been an outpouring of support for the pilot's family, Pennell said.
"In a situation like this, the military family pulls together, so they are fully ensconced in support right now," he said.
