National Guard Plane Finds No Sign of Missing Climbers

Rescue workers in Oregon have been repeatedly thwarted by storms this week in their search for three men who went missing while climbing Mount Hood. Despite high winds, a National Guard C-130 circled the mountain on Friday but saw no sign of the men, according to its commander. The plane made three passes—one at 8,000 feet, the next at 10,000 feet, and the last at 12,500 feet, across the top of the volcanic summit of the mountain.

The C-130 Hercules is fitted with infrared imaging devices that can detect body heat. Rescuers had hoped that the flights by the C-130 would give them information about where best to search on the mountain. But according to Col. Jon Proehl, commander of the 152nd Airlift Wing of the Nevada Air National Guard, which provided the plane, clouds and drifting snow prevented the equipment from finding any thermal signatures and the equipment iced up.

The plane’s crew didn’t see any visible sign of the climbers, such as clothing or signals for help, and nothing at all was visible on the east side of the mountain. But Proehl said that C-130’s equipment wouldn’t have been able to detect body head from inside a snow case, if the hikers have holed up inside one.

The three men, one from New York and two from Texas, have been missing since one of the men, Kelly James, called his family on Sunday to say that the party was in trouble and two of them were going back down the mountain for help. The 48-year-old James said he was calling from inside a snow cave. The two climbers who are believed to have struck out to head back down the mountain are Brian Hall, 37, and Jerry "Nikko" Cook, 36. The last clue rescuers have to the location of the climbers was a cell phone signal returned from James’s cell phone on Tuesday.

At a news conference Friday, Capt. Christopher Bernard of the Air Force Reserve’s 304th Rescue Squadron held up a handwritten note that the climbers had intentionally left at a ranger station before they started up the mountain. In the note, they listed gear they were taking with them, including food, fuel, ropes, bivvy sacks, and a shovel. Bernard said the equipment they have with them would be helpful if they had to hunker down against the storms.

Rescuers are hoping for a break in the bad weather Saturday, and search teams climbing the mountain are planning a major push up to higher elevations to search for the missing men. Authorities have closed the 11,238-foot mountain to everyone except rescue crews on Saturday in order to eliminate possible false clues from tracks or cell phones.