1970’s & 1980’s

As beautiful as the Aspen Valley and surrounding mountains are, they are also filled unforgiving wilderness, Weather and mountain valleys.  Aspen also had one of the busiest general aviation airports in the country.
Mountain flying requires an attention to detail not often thought of in the lowlands and planes of the United States.  Many pilots mistakenly believed that, if they can fly in overcrowded skies of any major metropolitan area, then the mountains should be a “walk in the park.”  This belief often resulted in disaster.

As a young teenager my love of all things aviation was well established.  Family friends like Richard Bird or General Martin (USAF Ret.) owned their own aircraft and they were always willing to let me tag along, even taking the controls when it was safe.  By age 16 I already had many hours of flying time and my love of aviation went unabated.

During this same time period aviation charts and technology was still mainly accomplished by large maps known as “sectionals” and human control.  For nearly two decades from the late 1960’s well into the early 1990’s, Aspen lost dozens of aircraft to pilot error and bad planning.  Some of these aircraft went unfound for months and even years in a few cases.  These aircraft accidents took famous as well as infamous people alike.  Among them, Dr. Lovelace of “The Lovelace Clinic” and early Apollo space missions fame, as well as the heir to the F.W. Woolworth fortune, a young playboy by the name of Lance Reventlow.  Many local aviators who
should have known better also fell victim to the treacherous flying conditions of the area.

One of the more common locations for downed aircraft was up Independence Pass near the Grizzly Reservoir.  As aircraft headed out of the valley, east towards Denver the logical route took them over Independence.  About half way up the valley floor split into two valleys.  One continued up Independence Pass and the other went further south towards the reservoir.  For aircraft heading out, their first mistake was to follow the valley to the south in error.  Not far up that valley a second valley branched off to the north which looked remarkably similar to what the Independence valley looked like.  For pilots choosing to follow that valley it was usually a fatal mistake.  The valley is known as Grizzly Creek and it is a “box canyon” with 13,000 plus feet walls on three sides.  Once in the canyon few aircraft had the power or ability to climb over the walls in such a short distance.  Many could not execute a turn quick enough to go back out of the valley from the direction they entered it.

Sadly, many aircraft were found on the valley floor, no survivors.

When an aircraft was reported as missing it was often the first place the rescuers looked if the aircraft headed out of the valley in that direction.  The Lenado Valley, north of the airport took a fair number of aircraft over the years as well, but go in any direction from Aspen’s airport and you will most likely pass over a former crash location. Grizzly Creek took most of its victims in the winter when the two valleys looked even more similar as the snow did a good job of hiding geological features that could help the pilots from making fatal decisions.   At that time “The General” Martin owned a Ted Smith Aerostar.  This was a mid-winged, twin-engine aircraft and he had equipped it with an Emergency Locator receiver.  Most aircraft are equipped with a device known as an “Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT)” which goes off upon impact or manually in the event of an emergency.  At the same time, most aircraft monitor the frequency that they transmit on as well as all Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) facilities.  The General’s Aerostar went one step further and had a device that not only picked up the transmissions but also guided the aircraft and crew to the source of the
transmissions.  I often acted as his co-pilot and “spotter” for these rescue missions.

Another peril of Grizzly Creek was the avalanche danger in the winter.  In order to get into the valley from the
canyon entrance, the rescue teams utilized snow cats and snowmobiles or had the use of US Army helicopters.  The noise of this equipment could cause an avalanche and put more people in danger.  We often flew circles over the valley, well above the canyon walls as the teams went in to get the bodies.  If any sort of movement on the canyon walls was detected, we called out to the teams to leave the valley.

By the early 1990’s technologies such as GPS’s and digital maps largely eliminated the risks of mountain flying and taking the wrong routes.  Accidents due to Pilots taking the wrong routes in and around Aspen have become largely a thing of the past.