Walker CAP helps find crashed DNR plane

I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.

June 28, 1999

By Devlyn Brooks

The Walker Civil Air Patrol Squadron probably didn't receive the credit due it for the role it played in finding the downed Minnesota Department of Natural Resources plane that crashed June 11 in Lake of the Woods County.

In fact, it was the CAP Squadron that first discovered the plane carrying Grant Coyour, a DNR conservation officer and pilot, and University of Idaho doctoral student Eric Cox. Both died when their 1977 Piper Cub crashed into a desolate marsh.

It was widely reported at the time that a Canadian air force plane located the crash site, when, in fact, the Walker CAP plane discovered the site and had been searching for survivors for about an hour when the Canadian plane arrived on the scene.

Capt. Dick Stoneking of Longville was the pilot of that flight, and he modestly said Friday that the service the CAP Squadron performed was nothing more than a job well done by some dedicated volunteers.

"The Civil Air Patrol is an unknown thing. We operate pretty quietly," he said. "But we weren't the only ones involved. There were a lot of agencies that needed to communicate well that day."

Stoneking said the mission began when the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center in Langley, Va. -- which monitors all aircraft traffic in the nation 24 hours a day -- picked up the signal of a downed plane somewhere in northern Minnesota.

Stoneking said the rescue center picked up a distress signal emitted from the downed plane's emergency locator transmitter -- something that all big planes and most small planes have.

When a plane crashes, the force of the impact triggers the transmitter, he said.

After determining the signal wasn't a fluke, the rescue center reported the plane crash to the CAP unit in St. Paul, which forwarded it to the nearest CAP squadron in Minnesota, which happened to be Walker.

"I got the call at 1:15 p.m. from mission control in Minneapolis," Stoneking said. "And we were in the air by about 2:05 p.m. We found the plane less than an hour later."

Stoneking said he and his crew -- copilot Capt. Mark Shorter and observer 1st Lt. Roger Fagerman in the plane and flight release officer 1st Lt. Harold Cotant who was on the ground in Walker -- picked up the emergency signal about halfway across Upper Red Lake.

When they arrived north of the lake, he said the plane was easily visible -- nose in the ground and tail pointing to the skies.

"And if you've been north of Red Lake, you know there's nothing there -- 1,000 square acres of marsh," he said. "With that airplane sitting up there on its nose, it looked like a big telephone pole."

Stoneking said he descended to about 1,500 feet, where they circled the crash site for more than 30 minutes looking for "tracks out of there, bodies or survivors."

That's when the Canadian air force plane, which had been performing a training exercise north of Winnipeg, Manitoba, came upon the crash site.

Stoneking said his plane needed refueling, so they headed for Bemidji while the Canadian plane continued to circle the crash site.

Two paratrooper medics jumped from the Canadian plane to find Coyour and Cox dead at the crash site.

After refueling in Bemidji, Stoneking's CAP crew stopped in Washkish to pick up a Beltrami County sheriff's deputy and flew back to the crash. They circled for more than an hour as the deputy guided two other deputies on the ground to the site.

After local authorities secured the scene and assumed control of the investigation, the Walker CAP plane headed for home.

"It was a textbook program that we've trained for years. Everything went just like clockwork," Stoneking said. "But we appreciated the help from the Canadian plane because the medics who jumped in there were able to see if there were any casualties. We were over the site before 3 p.m., and it was 8 p.m. before there was a ground crew on the scene. Those hours could have made a difference to someone who was alive."

Stoneking said the only unfortunate aspect of the entire mission was that both of the plane's occupants were found dead.

"If we would have found two people walking around that wreckage," he said, "I would have been the happiest person in the world."

The Walker CAP Squadron is one of 17 CAP units in Minnesota owned by the U.S. Air Force. The patrol collaborates with local, state and federal agencies in search and rescue missions to locate lost people, aircraft and boats.

It was the second aircraft accident the Walker unit assisted in locating in the last five years.