OvertHawk
Regarding "rushing" the job of flying the CG Dolphin out of there, it got stuck on Monday and was still there on Wednesday. San Francisco is just a 1.5 hr drive away. Not a lot of rushing going on. I did find an interesting quote: "We were digging behind the main landing gear to safely roll it back down the hill onto the path to get it onto more level ground," US Coast Guard Chief Aviation Maintenance Technician David Blowers said. That explains part of my puzzlement, the first photos I saw showed the Dolphin on the path, looking very flyable, not where it set down. I should add that we're in a 3 yr drought. Might be a little mud out there, but not much, as you can see from the photo that Skadi posted.