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It was the middle of Caribou season in Alaska, we'd been floating Birch Creek northeast of Fairbanks just south of the Arctic Circle for 2 weeks.
We made it to our landing mid morning of the 11th and went to Circle Hot Springs Lodge, that's where we heard the news.
For stranded hunters, the truth was an unexpected nightmare
JAY SCHWEITZER
Bob Schweitzer, left, and his brother, Russ, have hunted in Alaska's backcountry for years, ferrying to and from camp in Bob's Cessna 206.
They could never, however, have been prepared for what happened when they tried to return to Anchorage last Sept. 11.
Bob Schweitzer did not know that the World Trade Center had collapsed, that U.S. airspace had been closed, that the Pentagon was burning and the president could not safely return to Washington.
All he knew was that his little Cessna 206 was flanked by a pair of F15s, and they weren't acting friendly. They had come in from the south, one and then another, flying out of the sun in a combat roll.
At first, Schweitzer thought it was just rookie pilots taking a dare, breaking the rules and buzzing a Cessna.
Then they came in slow and alongside, close enough that Schweitzer could tell when the pilots looked his way, slow enough they risked stalling.
Then one of the F15s dived in front of him, hurtling so steeply and from such a low altitude he feared the pilot wouldn't be able to pull up quickly enough.
They wanted him on the ground, that much was clear. But why?
Schweitzer and a neighbor were about 50 miles outside Anchorage, flying low over Alexander Lake, looking for ducks, en route home from a hunting trip along the South Fork of the Kuskokwim River.
His brother, Russ, and another friend were still at the remote camp, waiting for Schweitzer to drop off the first load of gear, and return for them.
It was midmorning on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, a nd the men had been out of contact with the rest of the world since Sunday, hunting sheep in the mountains about 100 miles south of Mount McKinley. Schweitzer had no way to contact the F15s, so he radioed Anchorage air traffic control.
"Anchorage approach, this is Cessna 8048-Zulu. I've got a couple of F-15s over here paying a lot more attention to me than I really deserve and was just wondering what's going on."
The reply was anything but reassuring.
"You are not to proceed into Anchorage," the voice said. "You are to land as soon as possible."
Not until 30 minutes later, after he turned the Cessna around and headed back to the tiny airstrip in Skwentna, thats where Schweitzer did find out why he had warranted such attention.
As the F-15s circled the landing strip, making certain he stayed on the ground, Schweitzer hustled over to the shack where a woman provides weather reports for bush pilots.
"What's going on?" he blurted.
She pointed to the television set and the scene that gut-punched all of America last Sept. 11. And Schweitzer learned that hijackers had crashed commercial airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and that all aircraft had been ordered out of the skies.
"It didn't take long to put it all together," he said. Even though he understood the need to clear U.S. airspace, Schweitzer called the FAA in Anchorage and said he needed permission to refuel and return to the Kuskokwim for the rest of his hunting party.
"We left them sitting by the river, with one sleeping bag, their rifles and a little bit of groceries," he told the FAA.
"They don't even have a tent."
"You are not authorized to take off," came the reply. "It is absolutely forbidden."
Had he not needed fuel, Schweitzer might have tried to sneak back to camp. But there was no way to refuel in Skwentna, and he felt sure that flying any nearer to Anchorage likely would get him shot down.
Flying the 80 miles north, northeast to Talkeetna would be just as risky with two F-15s in the area.
Without fuel, there was no way to make it back to his brother.
"It was bad," Schweitzer said. "I knew those guys would be beside themselves, not knowing what had happened.
"I was really concerned about them. I knew, from their perspective, they were probably thinking we had stacked into a mountain somewhere."
Russ Schweitzer did not know that the World Trade Center was gone, that thousands of people had died in New York and Washington and Pennsylvania, that the vice president had taken refuge in a bunker beneath the White House.
All he knew was that his oldest brother had taken off for Anchorage eight and a half hours earlier, saying he'd be back by noon.
Which meant he was six hours overdue and darkness wasn't long off and Schweitzer was driving himself crazy with possibilities.
Maybe the Cessna needed repairs; there had been trouble with one of the fuel pumps on the trip into the Kuskokwim.
Maybe it acted up again on the flight out. Maybe, once it got so close to dusk, his brother decided to wait until morning, knowing the guys could make-do for one night.
Maybe there had been a storm in Anchorage, or somewhere in-between. Maybe he was just waiting for better weather. Schweitzer's a cautious pilot, "ultraconservative," his brother said. He might be waiting out a storm.
Or maybe there had been an accident.
Maybe the plane had gone down somewhere in the mountains, and nobody even knew to start looking.
The terrain was so rugged. Where would they even look?
What if the worst had happened.
"The first night, we were concerned, but we had spent a lot of time up in Alaska over the years and we knew there were all sorts of explanations," Russ Schweitzer remembered. "We just kept trying to convince each other that everything was OK.
We got to sleep even, and slept through the night." Come morning, his brother would come flying down the river with an apology and an explanation, and everything would be all right.
"That next morning, Wednesday, we expected my brother any time," Schweitzer said. "We thought he was just waiting for the weather to warm a bit so he wouldn't have to de-ice the plane." But then noon rolled around. And mid-afternoon. The men started taking turns leaving their post on the gravel bar that serves as a backcountry landing strip. All day, there was nothing.
They dragged a bunch of wood down to the river and built a huge fire. They played a lifetime's worth of cribbage. They paced up and down the Kuskokwim, for miles.
They grieved.
"It was flat scary," Schweitzer said.
Before they left Missoula, Schweitzer's hunting buddy had seen "Cast Away," the Tom Hanks movie about a man who is stranded on an island for four years after a plane crash.
Like the Hanks character in the movie, Schweitzer's friend had a toothache just before they left Montana.
Unlike the Hanks character, he went to the dentist, hoping to avoid any self-dentistry.
The men did, however, make "a Wilson." In the movie, Hanks turned a volleyball that washed ashore into a "friend" named Wilson.
Throughout the years of solitude, he confided in Wilson as if he were a friend.
The Missoula men's Wilson was a rock with facial features scratched into the surface.
"We did everything we could to keep our spirits up," Schweitzer said. "But it got pretty intense. We really thought my brother was dead.
There just wasn't any other explanation for why he wouldn't have come back for us."
Because no one could have imagined what had actually happened.
"Wednesday night was a long night," Schweitzer said. "We had a big, big fire going. We'd talk to Wilson and try to cheer each other up.
Things were bad." Bob Schweitzer, 60, is the oldest of five children; Russ, 43, is the youngest. "I've chased around after my big brother all my life," Russ said. "My heart was hurting."
"I had a lot of guilt t hinking that I was the one who put the whole trip together and wanted to go up to the Kuskokwim," he said.
"How was I ever going to talk to my other brothers and my sister? How was I going to tell them I'd gotten our brother killed?"
By Thursday mornin g, both brothers were beside themselves with worry and sadness.
Bob Schweitzer and his neighbor were still grounded in Skwentna; he knew his brother would think he was dead. Russ Schweitzer and his friend were still sitting on the river's edge, surrounded by impossibly steep mountains; he knew he needed to find a way to get word out, so people could start searching for the Cessna.
Then word came to the little airfield in Skwentna. Alaska had been cleared to release general aviation within its borders, as t here is no other mode of travel in much of the state. Within minutes, Schweitzer was in the air, en route to Anchorage to drop off his neighbor, grab a couple of sandwiches and refuel for the trip back north.
At the last minute, knowing no one would ever believe what had happened, he grabbed the front page of the Anchorage Daily News showing the burning World Trade Center towers.
By chance, an outfitter looking for stranded clients was the first to land on the gravel bar that morning. He, too, came carryi ng a newspaper. Russ Schweitzer was off on a walk when the outfitter's plane arrived.
His buddy called on a little handheld radio with the news: "Dude," he said, "you won't believe what went on." "I'm a couple of miles upriver, running, and he's telling me what had happened,"
Schweitzer said. "It was like somebody took this huge load off my shoulders. My brother was all right."
An hour and a half later, Bob Schweitzer came flying down the river in his Cessna. "My brother's got a big grin that yo u wouldn't believe," Russ said. "He gets out of the plane with this big grin on his face, holding a couple of Subway sandwiches and Cokes. We both, both of us just gave him a great big hug. We were so happy to see him."
Back in Anchorage a few hours later , Schweitzer called his family in Missoula. They, too, had been worried, knowing he was out of contact with the world. Then he sat in front of the television and relived Sept. 11. And his heart hurt once more.
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