Aurora Borealis Rescue.

This mission occurred while I was stationed with the 5040th Helicopter Squadron based at Elmendorf AFB, AK

We kept a helicopter on TDY rotation at Eielson AFB AK where we supported several AF sites, the gunnery range, several DOD special missions and alert air rescue missions.

This mission occurred around January of 1974 while I was on my one week TDY rotation at Eielson. We were called out to rescue a civilian homesteader that lived about an hour, by air, North of Fairbanks who was suffering a heart attack.

As we were preparing to take off we called for a C-130 to launch from Elmendorf AFB, to meet us and drop flares for us to land by. It was a cold (about 10-20 degrees below) clear night with very little moonlight and it was pitch dark. Once you leave the Fairbanks area there is a lot of wilderness and no ground lighting and it’s very dark. We were airborne around 1:00 a.m., a short time after we were alerted, and proceeding North to try and locate the homesteader’s cabin. We were airborne before the C-130 and arrived in the area of the cabin about thirty to forty minutes before the flare ship was due to be over the search area.

It took us a few minutes to locate the cabin, the wife was signaling with a lantern or flashlight. As we were circling and waiting for the C-130 to arrive we received word that the man was critical and needed to be evacuated as soon as possible. I have always believed that this man must have had good contact with God, because at about the same time we got word that he was critical, God provided the light we needed to find a safe landing place.

The Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) came out and those beautiful lights began dancing all over the sky and it was almost like daylight. We quickly located a suitable landing site near the cabin and made a safe landing on the snow and begin moving the man and his wife from their cabin to the HH-3E.

As soon as we made our landing we called the inbound C-130 (still about 30 minutes from us) and thanked them for making the trip to help us and turned them around, since we no longer needed any flares to light a landing area. After loading everyone on board, we made an un-eventful take off and flight back to Eielson AFB, still under the glow of Aurora Borealis.

During my tour in Alaska, I was blessed to see this amazing display of nature on several different occasions, but I don’t believe any of them could equal the brilliance and beauty of those lights dancing across the clear Alaskan sky on that night. Certainly none could match the timing of the display that night.

I will never forget the landing we made that night under light provided by God.
(Jim Burns)