Here is the story of the incident.
This is from the new 46er book being compiled. The volume should be out next year!
A TALE OF SURVIVAL IN IROQUOIS PASS
The MacIntyre Range in the 1960's saw yet another plane crash, however this one ended with a dramatic life saving rescue. Many factors contributed to this miracle, not the least of which was luck and timing. The date was August 9, 1969, a night of fair weather and moderate summer temperatures. These two factors eliminated a whole host of secondary problems that could have besieged the pilot, F. Peter Simmons, for weather and exposure often contribute to fatalities after one has survived the initial impact.
Simmons, a relatively inexperienced pilot, left the Islip airport in Long Island (New York) for a solo night flight up to the Adirondack Regional Airport in Lake Clear. He was flying home to the family camp on Big Tupper Lake, and family members were waiting to pick him up at the airport. He never arrived. His Cherokee 140 found a different runway to touch down on.
When Simmons' Cherokee 140 became ensnared in a downdraft as he flew over the High Peaks region, Simmons was forced to use every lesson he had learned in flight school and from his 350 hours of flight experience. He knew he was going down and could not stop his descent so he pulled the Cherokee's nose up and dropped his airspeed down to 65 m.p.h. Sensing impact, he switched the master and the mags off. The last thing he remembered was a slight thump from one of the wings, as if it clipped a branch. Then fate took over.
His plane had missed the rocky flanks of Iroquois by a scant few hundred yards on one side, and the slopes of Mount Marshall on the other. As if guided by pure luck, the plane came down in the flat of Iroquois Pass, just as the slope turns downward toward Lake Colden. To help matters more, the plane was less than a hundred feet off the only trail in that area of the forest.
The Cherokee was not equipped with a shoulder harness and Simmons paid a heavy price for it. The impact threw him forward into the instrument panel, shattering his cheekbone, fracturing his skull, crushing his left eye socket, and breaking his lower jaw. A leg, ankle, and wrist also broke in the crash. He was in rough shape and going nowhere. To compound matters and place him deeper in jeopardy, the Cherokee was not carrying a crash-locator beacon.
But not to worry, for campers down by the lakes below had heard the impact and told Forest Ranger Gary Hodgson about it. He called the State Police to offer his services and give the Civil Air Patrol a possible search parameter. The CAP sent 27 planes up over the area and at 4:45pm on August 10th, some fifteen hours after the crash, the fuselage of the Cherokee was spotted from the air. However the pilot incorrectly identified the crash site as being Mount Marcy and it wasn't until 6 p.m. that another pilot gave a well detailed description of the landing site.
Hodgson, Marcy Dam caretaker Al Jordan, and a dozen other rescuers, including five state troopers, assembled at Marcy Dam and set out for the crash at 6:45 p.m. Just as dusk was settling around them, at around 8:40 p.m., they found the Cherokee and Simmons inside. Incredibly, the Cherokee was fairly intact, resting at about 3,800 feet.
Jordan and Hodgson treated Simmons for shock, placing him inside a sleeping bag and lighting a lantern for heat. The next morning, and some thirty-two hours after the crash landing, Simmons was air lifted out by the Conservation Department's helicopter, stabilized inside by Dr. Herbert Bergamini and Dr. E. Addis Munyan, and safely on the terra firma outside of the Lake Placid Hospital by 9 am.
This was the first, and only, rescue in the Adirondacks by the Civil Air Patrol. Simmons recovery was slow and intensive, but there are few days that go by were he doesn't think of those all the people who helped save his life. From the campers who helped guide the initial search, to the CAP for pinpointing his location, to the rescuers for securing and stabilizing him, to the air lift and doctors who put him back together. Many people working together to save a life stranded on the MacIntyre Range. Simmons has repeatedly shown his appreciation by throwing summer parties in recognition of those who saved his life that fateful August night.
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