Founded | 1982 |
---|---|
Type | Public Safety, Search and Rescue |
Location | |
Area served | Southeast Alaska United States |
Method | Mountain Rescue, Rope Rescue, Avalanche Rescue |
Website | juneaumountainrescue |
Juneau Mountain Rescue (JMR) is a mountain search and rescue agency, located in Juneau, Alaska, United States. JMR is a member of the Alaska Search and Rescue Association, and facilitates rescues involving wilderness terrain, rope rescues on rock faces, ice and snow fields, glaciers, and during avalanches, medical evacuations, missing persons cases, aircraft crashes and other disasters. [1] An all-volunteer organization, JMR coordinates with Capital City Fire/Rescue, the Juneau Police Department, the Alaska State Troopers, the United States Coast Guard, and other emergency response agencies during search and rescue operations. [2] [3]
Juneau Mountain Rescue was founded in 1982 after Steve Lewis taught a series of high-angle rescue classes in the Spring, Summer and Fall of 1982. [1] Founding members: Steve Lewis, Bob Poe and Cathy Poe, and Jeff Badger. In 1989, Lewis, Cynda Stanek, and William (Bill) Wildes incorporated JMR. Lewis served as JMR's director until 2009 – having completed more than 212 search, rescue and recovery operations. Since 2004, JMR has been a fully accredited member of the international Mountain Rescue Association (MRA), having passed a rigorous test of JMR's rescue abilities at Juneau's Eaglecrest Ski Area. At the time of its accreditation, JMR was one of 56 mountain rescue agencies accredited by the MRA. [4]
Juneau Mountain Rescue operates under the FCC call sign WPZP295 for radio communications. The call sign is currently licensed until February 11, 2034. [5]
The Coast Guard and Juneau Mountain Rescue recover body of pilot Fariah Peterson from crash site
Coast Guard honors JMR team for 1999 Mendenlhall Glacier Temsco helicopter rescue. Eyewitness Accounts.
Fall 2005, Steve Lewis, founding member and director of Juneau Mountain Rescue, Bowler said, “puts the ‘rescue’ into the search-and-rescue business.
In September1999, 6 rescued after helicopter crashes on glacier.
In December 2000, a Bellanca Scout airplane carrying former Routt County, Colorado Sheriff Ed Burch, at the time working as a flight instructor, and another man went missing during a training flight near Juneau. Juneau Mountain Rescue, working with other agencies, including the local Civil Air Patrol and the Army National Guard, found pieces of the Scout between Douglas and Admiralty Island. The plane's fuselage and passengers were never found. [6]
In January 2011, JMR volunteers, working with the Alaska State Troopers and the Coast Guard, rescued an injured hiker on Ripikski Mountain, near Haines. A Coast Guard crew on a MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter, dispatched from Sitka, transported the hiker to Bartlett Regional Hospital in Juneau. [7]
In March 2014, two teenage boys, one a local resident and the other a visitor from Switzerland, got lost hiking on Mount Juneau. The teens were able to call for help on a cell phone, and told emergency dispatchers that they were "cold and disoriented". JMR volunteers, working with a commercial helicopter company, located the teenagers and returned them to town. [8]
In May 2014, a woman named Sharon Buis was reported missing in the area of Juneau's Mount Roberts. A search was coordinated by JMR on both Mount Juneau and Mount Roberts, with parts of the effort being facilitated by use of the Mount Roberts Tramway. [9] [10] JMR coordinated with the Alaska State Troopers, and the US Coast Guard during the lengthy search. Despite an exhaustive search, Buis was never found. [11] After several days of searching, the case was transferred to the Juneau Police Department, and is an active missing persons case. [12]
On February 15, 2015, four hikers were rescued by members of JMR, after becoming stranded in mountainous wilderness in the Thane area of Juneau. The hikers suffered injuries related to cold weather conditions, and were taken to Bartlett Regional Hospital. [13]
Coast Guard and Juneau Mountain Rescue have recovered the body of pilot Fariah Peterson from the crash site, according to an Alaska State Troopers dispatch.
Mountain search and rescue groups honor team members lost during rescue operations.
Below is a general list of early JMR search and rescue operations with outcomes if known.
The Lockheed HC-130 is an extended-range, search and rescue (SAR)/combat search and rescue (CSAR) version of the C-130 Hercules military transport aircraft, with two different versions operated by two separate services in the U.S. armed forces.
The Sikorsky MH-60T Jayhawk is a multi-mission, twin-engine, medium-range helicopter operated by the United States Coast Guard for search and rescue, law enforcement, military readiness and marine environmental protection missions. It was originally designated HH-60J before being upgraded and redesignated in 2007.
The Airbus Helicopters H125 is a single-engine light utility helicopter originally designed and manufactured in France by Aérospatiale and Eurocopter. In North America, the H125 is marketed as the AStar. The AS355 Ecureuil 2 is a twin-engine variant, marketed in North America as the TwinStar.
The Abbot Pass hut was an alpine hut located at an altitude of 2,925 metres (9,596 ft) in Abbot Pass in the Rocky Mountains in Alberta, Canada. It was nestled between Mount Victoria and Mount Lefroy, straddling the Great Divide, which, in this region, defines the boundary between Banff National Park in Alberta and Yoho National Park in British Columbia. While close to the border, the hut lay entirely in Banff National Park, and was the second-highest permanently habitable structure in Canada. The hut was maintained by the Alpine Club of Canada.
Auke Bay is a neighborhood located in the city and borough of Juneau, Alaska, that contains Auke Bay Harbor, Auke Lake, the University of Alaska Southeast, an elementary school, a church, a post office, a bar, a coffee shop, a waffle house, a thrift shop, a Thai restaurant, and one convenience store.
The 176th Wing is a unit of the Alaska Air National Guard, stationed at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson (JBER), Anchorage, Alaska. If activated to federal service, components of the Wing are gained by several United States Air Force Major Commands.
Mount Hood climbing accidents are incidents related to mountain climbing or hiking on Oregon's Mount Hood. As of 2007, about 10,000 people attempt to climb the mountain each year. As of May 2002, more than 130 people are known to have died climbing Mount Hood since records have been kept. One of the worst climbing accidents occurred in 1986, when seven high school students and two teachers froze to death while attempting to retreat from a storm.
The 210th Rescue Squadron is a unit of the Alaska Air National Guard 176th Wing located at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Anchorage, Alaska. The 210th is equipped with the HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopter.
The 211th Rescue Squadron is a unit of the Alaska Air National Guard 176th Wing located at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Anchorage, Alaska. The 211th is equipped with the HC-130J Hercules.
On August 9, 2010, a privately operated amphibious floatplane crashed near Aleknagik, Alaska, killing five of the nine people on board. The fatalities included former U.S. Senator Ted Stevens, while the survivors included former Administrator of NASA and then-CEO of EADS North America Sean O'Keefe, his son, and future Deputy Administrator of NASA James Morhard.
Pan Am Flight 923 was a Douglas DC-4 operating from Seattle, Washington to Juneau, Alaska, which crashed into Tamgas Mountain on Annette Island, Alaska, on October 26, 1947. All 18 passengers and crew on board were killed.
The 1952 Mount Gannett C-124 crash was an accident in which a Douglas C-124 Globemaster II military transport aircraft of the United States Air Force crashed into Mount Gannett, a peak in the Chugach Mountains in the American state of Alaska, on November 22, 1952. All of the 52 people on board were killed.
Mount Blachnitzky is a 6,552 ft (2,000 m) mountain summit in the city and borough of Juneau, Alaska, United States. It is a part of the Boundary Ranges of the Coast Mountains in western North America. It is located between Gilkey Glacier and Avalanche Canyon; it is named after Klaus Blachnitzky (1921-1988), a surveyor, geodesist, and explorer of the Juneau Icefield. Mr. Blachnitzky was the head surveyor for the Juneau Icefield Research Program. Much of his work was conducted in the vicinity of this summit. In August 1988, having completed almost two seasons instructing student surveyors and scientists in the science and practice of terrestrial field surveying and geodesy, he was killed when he slipped from a rock cleaver on the slope of Vaughan Lewis Glacier. The site of his death is four miles from the mountain named in his honor. In 2004, four climbers made a memorial climb of the previously unclimbed summit, leaving at the peak some surveying mementos of Mr. Blachnitzky's life. That first ascent was made by Scott McGee, Keith Daellenbach, Charles Daellenbach, and Fred Skemp III, on June 30, 2004, via the southwest cirque/south ridge. The mountain's name was officially adopted in 2007 by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names.
Capital City Fire/Rescue (CCFR) provides fire suppression and emergency medical services to the city of Juneau, Alaska, United States.
In the afternoon of 25 April 2015, a MW 7.8 earthquake struck Nepal and surrounding countries. Tremors from the quake triggered an avalanche from Pumori into Base Camp on Mount Everest. At least twenty-two people were killed, surpassing the toll of an avalanche that occurred in 2014 as the deadliest disaster on the mountain.
Alaska Central Express Flight 51 was an Alaska Central Express flight from Anchorage to King Salmon and Dillingham, Alaska. On 8 March 2013, the Beechcraft 1900C-1 serving the flight crashed into a mountain on approach to Dillingham Airport, killing both crew members on board.
In the early hours of 14 March 2017, a Sikorsky S-92 helicopter operated by CHC Helicopter under contract to the Irish Coast Guard crashed into the sea while supporting a rescue operation off County Mayo, on Ireland's west coast. All four crew members on board, Captain Dara Fitzpatrick, Chief Pilot Mark Duffy, winch operator Paul Ormsby, and winch man Ciarán Smith were killed.
Dara Fitzpatrick was the Irish Coast Guard's most senior helicopter search and rescue pilot. As a Captain, she piloted the Dublin-based Rescue 116 helicopter. She was killed in the 2017 Irish Coast Guard Rescue 116 crash in March 2017.
On 4 August 2018, a de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver aircraft operated by K2 Aviation crashed in poor weather near Denali, Alaska, United States. All five people on board survived the crash, but died before rescuers were able to arrive at the scene. The five people consisted of the pilot and four Polish tourists.