Media coverage of the Hassayampa River flooding turns Wickenburg’s airspace into a danger zone of low-flying aircraft.
Wickenburg was on the news quite a bit this past weekend. It seems that the Phoenix-area news teams heard about the damage on Jack Burden Road and decided to fly up to get some live footage. At various times, each of the Phoenix TV helicopters were in town, beaming images of the new waterfront housing back to the city. It was just the kind of disaster the media likes and they made good use of it.
Of course, it also created a tourist attraction for pilots in the Phoenix area. I nearly had a close encounter with one of them on Sunday.
I’d just departed the airport, heading out toward Lake Pleasant. My normal path takes me over the river near town. My normal altitude is 500 AGL, far below the altitudes most airplanes fly. So imagine my surprise when I saw a single engine airplane slightly below my altitude, flying right up the river toward me.
I took evasive action, veering to the east and climbing. (My usual evasive maneuver to avoid airplanes is to descend, since they’re normally above me, so this was weird.) “Airplane over Wickenburg, are you on frequency?” I asked into the radio.
No answer.
This pissed me off. The guy was less than 5 miles from an operating airport and he wasn’t even on the airport frequency. There were at least two other airplanes in the area — I’d heard both of them on the radio. There was a real danger of one of them meeting up with this idiot in the air.
“Wickenburg traffic, be advised that there is a low-flying airplane over the town, flying up the Hassayampa River. He is not on frequency.”
John, who was working at the FBO, made some comment I didn’t catch. The airplane passed below us, to our right. We continued flying out of town, now avoiding the river and any other aerial tourists it may have attracted.
The only thing I regret is that I didn’t get the jerk’s N-Number. He was close enough to see it, but I was more concerned with getting out of his way than identifying him. Next time will be different.
I could have hurried right back the airport, but since none of us were in any rush, I figured I’d take the opportunity to check out the river. We flew past Kay El Bar, which had water right up to its front lawn, and headed up the river. A number of ranches had some water flowing through their low spots. I watched some cattle cross a stream. But the most dramatic scene was at the narrow slow canyon north of town — the water was squeezing through the slot and had reached a depth of at least 20 feet. There would be no driving through the slot anytime soon.
We flew over town and circled the area around the bridge. Mike got some excellent photos of the damage on Jack Burden Road — which you really couldn’t see from the ground — and the carnival right across the river. Then we headed up the river so I could show Mike how full the slot canyon was. It was raining up there, so I turned around and headed back down the river, in search of what was left of the house that had gone downstream. We hit a pretty nasty downdraft just past the bridge and since neither of us liked that, I climbed an extra 200 feet. It was a good thing I did, because when we got to the Morristown area, a helicopter flew under us, going up river. I don’t even know if he saw us. I turned around and followed him upriver, keeping some distance between us. At about that time, Don from LifeNet made a call for his departure from the airport. A moment later, I heard him on the radio again, asking the helicopter over town if it was on frequency. Although I expected the helicopter ahead of me to answer, it was Ray who replied. That meant there were four helicopters operating over town at the same time.
Of course, now that the rain has let up to a drizzle, the water’s flow is receding. An hour has gone by since I woke up and the flow is now no more than a narrow stream of brown water. An hour ago, it would have been impossible to leave the house; my driveway was under two feet of running water in some places. Now, I could drive — or even walk — across. A few years ago, I was home alone when a big storm hit. The wash filled with water, all the way across, to a depth of at least four feet. We had some trailers parked in the wash and one of them — a 12-foot flatbed — was washed a mile downstream (see photo). It took a back-hoe to get it out of the ground. The other trailer, a 3500-lb 2-horse horse trailer, was slowly washed about 150 yards downstream. Thank heaven it didn’t get washed over on its side. As it was, we had to replace all wheel bearings in both trailers before we could use them again.