ButteRescue
Welcome to the forum, and thanks for posting your views.
"if the civilian pilot and ship had been so gung-ho about providing search & rescue services, they should have discussed it with the Sheriff's Office days/months/years prior ........"
Where does it say they were "gung-ho" about providing "search & rescue services" for days/months/years prior to this incident?
Local resident Dan Kohrdt said a friend who saw the search effort reported on television called him shortly after 11 p.m. Kohrdt, who owns a Bell 407 helicopter with state-of-the art night-vision equipment, called his pilot, David Gunsauls, and the two men agreed they should assist in the search effort.
"That's how people get hurt or killed."
We all respect the skills and often great courage of trained rescuers, and ideally all rescues should be by trained skilled crews, but is there a history/pattern of people getting hurt or killed when civilians perform ad hoc rescues?
"the children, while lost, weren't in dire trouble."
They weren't in dire trouble at the time they were rescued. (The 2 children, boy and girl aged 11, were found cold and frightened and holding on tightly to one another. At the time they were rescued, they weren't suffering from hypothermia despite the weather and being dressed in light clothing. We don't know if they might have later in the night. No-one knew whether they'd find a safe place and wait until morning, or keep trying to find their way home in the dark and fall and be injured for example. Surely what might or might not have happened if they hadn't been rescued when they were is just speculation?
"The Sheriff's Office and SAR Team had a pretty good feeling for where they were and had appropriate resources responding to handle the situation."
Incident commander Mike Larish said up to 25 people, some on all-terrain vehicles, were already looking for the children in the Nimshew Road area of Butte Creek Canyon when the helicopter showed up. However, he said searchers were approximately a half-mile from where the children were found, and guessed they could have remained lost for several more hours if not spotted from the air."They were still on the other side of the creek from us," Larish said. (As it turned out)
A Sheriff's Office press release noted the children were walking toward some lights, which would have taken them deeper into the canyon.
"Instead, the pilot of the ship decided to play cowboy and do a toe-in at night on a rocky bluff/ledge"
Play cowboy is obviously a matter of opinion.
Do you know what experience the pilot had? I only ask because when we've had pictures posted of helicopters doing toe-ins, I've noticed that posters from some parts of the world express amazement and those from other parts of the world are amazed at the amazement - because they do it frequently.
H.