Land Rights Network
American Land Rights Association
PO Box 400 – Battle Ground, WA 98604
Phone: 360-687-3087 – Fax: 360-687-2973 – E-mail: [email protected]  or
[email protected] Web Address: http://www.landrights.org 
Legislative Office: 507 Seward Square SE – Washington, DC 20003
Phone: 202-210-2357 – Fax: 202-543-7126 – E-mail: [email protected] 

Pilgrim Airlift Plane Crashes – Airlift Continues

The Associated Press article about the Pilgrim Family Airlift is below. It has been reprinted in hundreds of newspapers worldwide and is on CNN.

A humanitarian flight to help save the Pilgrim family from the Winter elements in Alaska, and overcome the Park Service access blockade, crashed on Friday, October 10th. The Pilot walked away but the plane was a total loss.

The official statement of the accident from local McCarthy sources: "Landing gear structural failure upon landing at the Marvelous Millsite caused a ground loop. Fuselage broke in two pieces, wing and engine and prop damaged. No injuries to the pilot, no passengers aboard.." Approx value of aircraft lost is $100,000.

The Pilot, airlift hero Kurt Stenehjem, was so supportive even after the accident that he tried to console local McCarthy airlift volunteers and the Pilgrim family who were so saddened and upset by his loss.

Everyone connected with the airlift suggested immediately that this accident was completely unnecessary and was a direct result of the Park Service denial of ground access.

Airlift volunteers were so motivated to keep the supplies moving that the airlift continued in a limited fashion even before the damaged Cessna 180 could be moved off the end of the Pilgrim family airstrip!

The airlift is continuing with winter feed, fuel, and supplies being transported by volunteer pilots. Aviation fuel is being supplied with donations.

American Land Rights Association, is calling the Park Service's road closure a "blockade" and likening the effort to the Berlin Airlift of 1948, when President Truman ordered planes to carry supplies after the German city was cut off by Soviet troops. "If Alaskans -- both rural and urban -- don't rally now to stop this agency in McCarthy, large parts of our state will be next for the Green Iron Curtain of Exclusion"...

The Pilgrim Family is very self reliant, but the American Land Rights Association recognized the need for help. It must be understood that the Park Service blockade of the road to their home and the disruption to their normal ability to earn a livelihood in this remote area has enormously increased their costs. And of course that is the exact intention of the Park Service and why they must not be successful in starving this family our of their home.

"It's just beautiful," Pilgrim said by telephone to the AP from his cabin. "I cannot tell you the unity. They just poured out their hearts."

Airlift pilot hero Roland Hammack lives at mile 32 on the McCarthy Road. When thanked for coming, he looked up and said, "When I broke my leg, the Pilgrims heard about it and brought me groceries. They didn't even know me."

"The response has been overwhelming here in the [Copper River] valley," said Lee Adler of Glennallen, who flew the first two loads Wednesday, October 8th landing his two-seat Citabria on the family's prospecting-era gravel airstrip. "There's a lot of stuff waiting on both sides of the river and even more in Glennallen."

The Airlift has flown nearly 25 flights with dozens yet to go. “The airlift will likely go on for weeks as more materials come in.

“The Pilgrims' plight is drawing national attention and financial contributions have been barely be enough to cover costs of the airlift,” said Rick Kenyon, a McCarthy pastor and newspaper publisher. "The Pilgrims are wonderful, loving people who I find to have a high degree of integrity," he said. "We're helping them because they're American citizens wronged by their government."...

The hero pilot who lost his plane, Kurt Stenehjem, hopes people will continue to support the airlift. “This battle is about access to our Federal lands,” he said. “I hope someone out there has another old plane they are not using that I can have to help continue the airlift." For anyone interested in helping replace the plane, Stenehjem can be reached at (907) 336-1910 or by e-mail at [email protected] 

The central place for fuel, supplies, and food to be received and stockpiled for airlift to the Pilgrims at Marvelous Millsite in upper McCarthy Creek valley will be at the McCarthy B&B hanger on the McCarthy WEST airstrip located off the Mile 58.5 turnoff across from the National Park Service closed Kiosk. Donated supplies will be received there. Call John Adams at 554-4433 or 554-1133(cell) for more information.

This will be an expensive rescue effort. Please do your part by sending a contribution for $25, $50, $75, $100, $500, $ 1,000 or whatever you can afford to the McCarthy-Kennicott Community Church or MKCC to meet some of the family’s immediate needs to replace their home that burned. They need the funds to buy the building materials necessary. They do all the work themselves. The flights can only carry a little bit each time and a lot of material is too big for a plane at all.

Make a notation on the check or money order that it is for the Pilgrim Fund. Mail to McCarthy-Kennicott Community Church, McCarthy #42, PO Box MXY, Glennallen, Alaska 99588. For more information, call Rick Kenyon, pastor (also the editor of the local Wrangell-St Elias News) at (907) 554-4454.

Flights by Wrangell Air, McCarthy Air and volunteer pilots will shuttle the supplies between the McCarthy State Airport and the Pilgrims (a 15 minute flight one way) as needed and as donations received for flight costs allow.

The Park Service is in the process of a legal attack on the Pilgrims. They’re going to try to bankrupt the family. American Land Rights has set up a legal fund and is working with a local lawyer and other interested parties. Anyone wishing to help with the Pilgrim Legal Fund may send contributions to: American Land Rights Association. PO Box 400, Battle Ground, WA 98604.

A special thank you to all who have supported the Pilgrim Family airlift so far.

HEADLINE – AP STORY
Airlift supplies family fighting Park Service
Park Service closed road that allows family of 17 to get supplies to cabin in national preserve
By MIKE CHAMBERS, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Please forward as widely as possible.

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