Maybe this doesn’t count because it relates to a bad weather incident in a fixed wing aircraft. (PBY-5A). I was flying as the flight engineer on a SAR looking for a tug that exploded in Lake Erie near Buffalo. We were accompanied by an Air Force SAR B-17. The fog was almost at lake level and we were flying about 50-100 feet over the surface of the lake. The B-17 returned to Selfridge Field knowing that there was no chance of locating the tug or survivors. We had been up for about 14 hours and returned to Buffalo to tank up. I was relieved for the flight back and I immediately hit the sack.. .. .I was so sound asleep that I missed out on the following. On the way back we encountered severe icing and the pilot turned on the de-icing pump putting alcohol on the props. The pump caught fire and the crew was trying to extinguish the fire, which was encroaching on the fuel tank for the APU. All of this was taking place about four or five feet from me and I was totally unaware. The pilot turned off the pumps and the props started to ice up. The props went out of balance and the ice broke off and hit the navigators sighting window destroying it and peppering the fuselage making a terrific racket and I not only did not notice the vibration and noise but I did not notice the drop in temperature. The pilot had hit the bail out bell and I didn’t hear that either. One more ring and we would have had to go over the side. Our wings and tail were also icing up and the wing warmers and the tail heater could not keep up.. .. .When we landed they woke me up and told me to open the hangar doors and they would just taxi into the hangar. I opened the doors and turned on the hardstand lights and what I saw amazed me. Two antennae had broken off and were hanging over the tail, the left side of the aircraft looked as if a ball peen hammer had been used to hit the skin of the aircraft and the whole aircraft was covered in ice. The pilot stated that if our base were twenty miles further we would have crashed.. . . . <small>[ 15 March 2002, 04:26: Message edited by: Lu Zuckerman ]</small>