Whitehorse Daily Star

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Photo by Whitehorse Star

CRUCIAL SOS – This SOS, tramped in the snow by Ralph Flores weeks after his plane crashed deep in the wilderness south of Watson Lake, was a turning point in the mirac- ulous survival story of Flores and Helen Klaban in 1963. Photo from WHITEHORSE STAR ARCHIVES

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Photo by Photo Submitted

PIECE OF HISTORY – Wilderness guide Alex Van Bibber looks over a piece of fabric bearing the aircraft registration number N58856. It was donated this week to the Yukon Transportation Museum. Photo from FEDERAL DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORT ARCHIVES

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Photo by Photo Submitted

PIGGYBACK TO SAFETY – Pilot Chuck Hamilton carries Helen Klaben through the snow from her shelter to his rescue airplane. Photo from YUKON TRANSPORTATION MUSEUM

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Photo by Vince Fedoroff

DONATION SECURED – The family of Chuck Hamilton donated a famous piece of airplane fabric to the Yukon Transportation Museum this week. The fabric, bearing the registration number N58856, now hangs as part of the permanent display detailing the miraculous survival story of Helen Klaben and Ralph Flores. Left to right are Hamilton’s daughter, Heather Hamilton, his wife, Marion, and niece Carmen Komish.

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Photo by Photo Submitted

INVESTIGATING THE SCENE – Alex Van Bibber, a well known Yukon wilderness guide and trapper, led the team of investigators to the crash site of the aircraft carrying Ralph Flores and Helen Klaben. Photo from FEDERAL DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORT ARCHIVES

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Photo by Whitehorse Star

WARM GREETING – Pilot Chuck Hamilton meets with Ralph Flores at Whitehorse General Hospital. Photo from WHITEHORSE STAR ARCHIVES

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Photo by Whitehorse Star

‘HEY I’M ALIVE’ – Helen Klaben is seen at the Whitehorse General Hospital a day or two after the historic rescue that captured the world. Photo from WHITEHORSE STAR ARCHIVES

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Photo by Whitehorse Star

Bob Cameron

Museum receives artifacts from famous crash

It was a story that captured the world.

By Chuck Tobin on November 9, 2018

It was a story that captured the world.

The rescue of pilot Ralph Flores and passenger Helen Klaben after they spent 49 days deep in northern B.C.’s frozen wilderness following their airplane crash in February 1963 made headlines from Whitehorse to New York, and beyond.

A big piece of history from the day was donated Monday afternoon to the Yukon Transportation Museum by the family of Charles Hamilton, the Watson Lake bush pilot responsible for the world-famous rescue.

The large section of the cloth fuselage bearing the registration of the downed aircraft was cut away and removed by Flores and Klaben so they could haul it down the mountain from the crash site to an area more open.

Attempts to draw attention to themselves in the five or six weeks following the crash failed.

The search had been extensive. Countless hours by numerous pilots were spent looking for the missing Howard DGA-15 and its two occupants. But the thick forest canopy would not surrender their location.

Injured, banged-up and bruised, they were largely immobile. Klaben’s feet had suffered severe frostbite.

It wasn’t until 10 days or so before they were rescued that Flores mustered the strength to travel down the mountain for a look.

When he returned a day or two later, it was decided they had to move down closer to the valley bottom, where they would be more visible.

It worked.

The piece of fuselage bearing the registration number N58856 – measuring about seven feet long by three feet wide – has been hanging in the recreation room of Hamilton’s home in Victoria for years.

Following his death last January, his daughter, Heather Hamilton, was going through things. She suggested to her mother, Marion, that they donate the piece of history back to the Yukon Transportation Museum. Her mother agreed.

Last Sunday, the two women travelled up from British Columbia as guests of Air North to be here for the unveiling. They were joined by Carmen Komish, Hamilton’s niece and a resident of Whitehorse.

Marion drew the curtain on the newest addition to the museum’s permanent display highlighting the story of Flores and Klaben, their miraculous survival and the circumstances of their amazing rescue.

Local aviation historian Bob Cameron emceed the event. For the 20 or so people on hand, he recalled the story of how Flores had just finished an 18-month stint as a mechanic at a Distant Early Warning Line site in Alaska.

He was going to be flying home to California for his two weeks off, before having to return for another 18 months. Flores advertised for anyone interested in flying with him to share the cost of fuel.

Klaben, a young, adventuresome 21-year-old originally from Brooklyn, N.Y., answered the ad.

The weather was nasty when they arrived in Whitehorse, Cameron told Monday’s audience. He said it was nasty when they left.

But in his haste to get home, Flores did not accept the advice from local pilots to stay put and let the weather pass before departing on the leg to Fort St. John, B.C.

They were south of Watson Lake in snowy conditions, and Flores was flying low in search of the Alaska Highway to help him find his way.

So low was he that when his first fuel tank ran dry, there wasn’t enough time to get gas flowing from the second tank before he lost altitude and crashed 75 miles south of Watson.

The pair’s injuries were substantial, but not life-threatening. They had little food on board: two cans of sardines, two cans of fruit cocktail, and some crackers.

Nothing else.

They lived on what they described later as a diet of melted snow water.

When they decided to move down the mountain, Flores used the section of fabric bearing the registration number as a toboggan on which to haul Klaben.

Off in the distance from their new shelter, they could see a large open slough. Flores would leave Klaben to go in search of the chainsaw noise they had heard.

On his way, he tramped out a big SOS in the snow at the slough they could see. Beside it, he tramped a big arrow pointing to the direction of Klaben and the shelter.

Hamilton ran a local flying business out of Watson Lake, the B.C.-Yukon Flying Services.

He and Jack George, a local First Nations hunting guide, were flying into a wilderness outfitting camp when Hamilton noticed something.

Marion said her husband was blinded by the glimmer of the bright sun off the snow, so he couldn’t make out the SOS, but something was tugging at him.

“So he leaned back and asked Jack George, who was in the back seat, if he could see anything, because he knew he had eagle eyes,” she recalled Monday. “Then Jack George asked him, ‘What does SOS mean?’”

Hamilton turned back for a second look, saw the arrow stamped in the snow beside the large distress signal and followed the direction. He flew over Klaben waving her arms.

He saw the registration number on the large piece of fabric they had used as a toboggan, confirming it belonged to the Howard aircraft that had gone missing seven weeks earlier.

Three aircraft from Watson Lake returned the next day, two of them landing first at a trapper’s cabin on Airplane Lake, where Flores eventually ended up. Hamilton then made the 16-km (10-mile) hop to pick up Klaben.

It was Hamilton who carried her some three miles through snow to his aircraft.

News of their unlikely survival spread like wildfire, right around the globe.

Klaben’s first thought when she awoke in the wrecked aircraft a half-hour after the crash, as she described to the Star from her hospital bed in Whitehorse: “Hey, I’m alive!”

It became the title of her book about the ordeal, and the title of the movie that followed in 1975.

Heather said her dad never really made a big deal of the part he played in the dramatic rescue.

“He was kind of modest about the whole thing,” she said. “He didn’t really like the big hoopla they made of it.”

But big hoopla it was.

Marion recalled how she and her husband were invited to New York, where Charlie appeared on a popular TV show featuring celebrity panelists trying to guess the identity of the mystery guest.

Given that Klaben was from Brooklyn, and given the story of their survival was still red-hot, it didn’t take long for the panelists to guess Charlie’s identity, Marion said.

She said they were also guests at the Playboy Mansion in New York.

The hardened fabric with registration number November 58856 was unveiled by Marion November 5. It’s among other artifacts recovered in 1998, when Cameron and three of Flores’ six children hiked into the crash site.

Nobody but Flores and Klaben, and an investigation team led by the late Alex Van Bibber a few days after the rescue, had ever been to the site.

Cameron, Flores’ two sons and a daughter were the first since March 1963.

Comments (10)

Up 0 Down 0

Christine Moore on Dec 9, 2019 at 8:50 am

To Marion Hamilton’s comment, Uncle Charlie will always be a hero and not forgotten. An article just came up on Facebook so I googled Helen Klaben and found more information and pictures we haven’t seen. We think of him often ❤️

Up 1 Down 0

Marion Hamilton on Feb 22, 2019 at 10:19 am

I am really missing "my hero"

Up 1 Down 0

Lisa Flores on Dec 27, 2018 at 12:56 pm

Can't believe it's been 20 years since my two brothers and I went to the Yukon to visit the site - it was and will always be a highlight in my life. The welcome you all gave us still burns with a happy place in my heart! Louyse - you are right, we had big plans to rebuild the plane and re-do the trek Dad and Helen had plan to make when the plane went down. We also wanted to return and put some sort of plaque at the place of the crash site. Unfortunately due to some family illness, most recently my brother Frank's Stage 4 prostate cancer and Leukemia, the plane is yet to be restored. But there is still hope! Helen's passing a few weeks back was tough to hear. I had always felt that as long as she was alive, a piece of my dad was still alive. My only hope is that when she passed to the other side, my Dad was one of the first to greet her. 49 days of extreme survival and grit is both their legacy. Regards to all -- Lisa Flores

Up 2 Down 0

Marion Hamilton on Dec 22, 2018 at 4:24 pm

Now that Chuck Hamilton (my "hero") AND Helen Klaben Kahn have both passed away; I have to wonder if the rescue story will also die..
or will it become one of the "legends" of the North. It truly was a very exciting time for all concerned.

Up 3 Down 0

Zoë Isabella Hodder Klaben Kahn on Dec 12, 2018 at 9:46 am

Hi everyone! My name is Zoë, and I am, at age 14, the oldest grandchild of Helen Klaben Kahn. She has indeed passed away from blood cancer, but I would like to thank you all for all the compassion people are giving us through this hard time. Thank you again!

Up 2 Down 0

MARION HAMILTON (Charlie's Widow) on Dec 6, 2018 at 7:06 pm

I have just heard that Helen Klaben/Kahn has just passed away.

Up 12 Down 1

Joseum Wales on Nov 10, 2018 at 5:33 pm

These types of stories are very compelling and I would like to see more of them.
Many people who live in Yukon are not connected to the past and it's so nice to share these types of events.

*Note from moderator:
More history stories of the Yukon can be seen on the Whitehorse Star website "History". Stories are from 1899 to 2007 and are all free viewing."

Up 10 Down 1

Marion J. Hamilton on Nov 10, 2018 at 12:23 pm

This was a nostalgic visit to the past. Charlie passed in January of this year. So, the timing was "on cue" !!

Up 7 Down 2

Louyse Drysett on Nov 10, 2018 at 11:21 am

It was too bad that the Flores children did not keep in touch as they had promised all of us Watson Laker's/Yukoner's. So many people worked at helping them make all the connections to find their Father's crash site.
I am sure everyone looked forward to hearing from them, and to see the LIFE magazine, the book and copy of the movie they were sending us, but no one heard another word, it's been 20 years!

Up 12 Down 0

Heather L Costello on Nov 9, 2018 at 11:27 pm

I remember this plane crash well and followed it through the Whitehorse Star as a child. As an adult I met Charlie and his wife and was amazed to find out he was the pilot that was involved in the rescue. He gave me a small part of the plane. Thank you Charlie and may you rest in peace

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