Nowhere, except the article from Spencer Kim in the WaPo, is there a hint that it was media aircraft in the area that kept National Guard helicopters on the ground. Instead there is a specific mention on Dec 1 of ONG waiting on the ground until the private helicopters hired by the Kim family left the area where the car was eventually found. Had the private helicopters not been asked to leave the area in favor of the National Guard, it is concievable that the Kims would have been found. James Kim had not yet left the car on that day, and would be alive.
One section of the Firehouse.com article is particularly damning:
Rubrecht [person in charge at the county Sheriff's office] said she didn't even know Rachor [guy who found family] was in the air. "I had no clue John Rachor was in the air until after Kati was found," she said. "No clue." In fact, she said that "I really never felt like I had a handle on the air operation." "I'm not afraid to tell anybody that it was overwhelming beyond anything I'd ever handled before," she said.
In particular, Ms. Rubrecht had talked to a ground searcher that had partially gone down the road where the family was found. The searcher had seen tire tracks and said that someone should go the rest of the distance down that road. Rubrecht misunderstood, thinking the road had been totally searched, and crossed that road off the list to be searched again.
In the end, it is particularly insulting that the Oregon National Guard (and I think a lot of other federal aviation assets, like the Forest Service) refuse to fly in airspace that is either not positively controlled, or reserved for their exclusive use. I don't demand such services when I fly my airplane. That the feds do this is contemptable.
Thanks for the comments.
Narby -- don't get me started on the Forest Service. They oscillate between safety-paranoid and wildly-reckless without ever settling on the middle ground where the rest of us operate. I think that Tony Kern was hired there and was trying to impose an Air Force (SAC, really) way of thinking on the stubborn culture, and when Tony left (didn't he?) that left the project incomplete and all a muddle. But I am not an insider over there.
About the Kim tragedy. It was a great error to have multiple aircraft responding to multiple search plans. Totally dumb to leave available assets on the ground, equally dumb to have assets in the area not on a single unified frequency. Nowadays the Guard seems to all speak VHF, even the fast movers; certainly the helicopters have this capability. (If not, USAF has a gadget that can retrans victor-to-uniform and vice-versa so that everybody is on the same virtual frequency).
I understand why some highly-structured and tightly-wrapped organisations don't like flying in uncontrolled airspace, though.
I was not aware that the family hired helicopters. Sounds like half the problem is irritation that he squandered his money.
As far as the screw-ups the searchers made -- geez. You have to expect, if you are lost, that those seeking you will be normal humans who make the usual quota of normal human errors. It's incumbent on you to keep yourself alive long enough for even an imperfect search to find you. Mr Kim failed that test, which is most unfortunate for himself, his wife and child, and all his friends, his fans, and his extended family.
But a suicide by whatever means is always a tragedy.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F