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| Wayne Learn flying to the rescue, 1967. Photo courtesy Louis Hudgin |
I do oral histories with people who worked or hiked or boated or flew in the Grand Canyon. This is an interesting story so go get some coffee and settle in...
Fifteen years ago, the Grand Canyon High School Coach Dan Lopez had told me that one of the Hudgin Air Service/Grand Canyon Airlines sightseeing planes had made a dead-stick landing on a large sandbar in Grand Canyon. Dan said he helped a pilot named Wayne Learn take that plane apart and Wayne flew the pieces out by helicopter.
During an interview last year with retired Park Engineer Dan Cockrum, he recounted the 1966 construction of the Silver Bridge near Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Dan mentioned taking many flights in and out of the Canyon by helicopter. The pilot was Wayne Learn. Learn and Bob Thurston started helicopter tours at Tusayan, Arizona, in April of 1966, forming Tusayan Helicopter Service, INC. Wayne used a Hiller OH-5A for this operation.
After interviewing Cockrum, I interviewed Ellen Hudgin and her sons Doug and Louis. This story tumbled out and it all came together.
Ellen’s husband Henry flew several thousand tours in the Grand Canyon with his older brothers Al and Palen. In 1950 they started flying early high wing PIPERs over the canyon from the Red Butte Grand Canyon Airport. When PIPER introduced the low wing Apache and Commanche in the mid 1950's they discovered that the view was much better when flown below the rim and looking up. Another benefit with the low wing was in a turn the wing moved out of sight whereas in a high wing your view was blocked in a turn. They continued to fly low wing tours after moving their operation to the present day Grand Canyon Airport when it opened in the mid-1960s. Two decades later after a midair collision in the Canyon, the FAA required all tours be flown above the canyon rim.
In the late 1950’s, Al introduced a Turbo Charged Bell 47 Helicopter to the flightline and did tours with the helicopter while Henry, Palen and other pilots flew Pipers and a De Havilland Dove during the busy summer season. Tragically, Al died in that helicopter on the San Francisco Peaks on July 11, 1961, but that’s another story.
On July 11, 1967, Henry’s flying day started in Nogales, AZ, after the funeral for his mother. He’d loaded his wife Ellen and their children into a Piper PA-32-300 Cherokee 6 and flew north across the state of Arizona to the new Grand Canyon Airport at Tusayan. On arriving back at the Canyon, Henry got right to work flying that afternoon’s tours in the same Cherokee 6.
Later in the afternoon he flew a sightseeing tour over the east end of the Park. The tour proceeded as normal up to about Hance Rapids when the diaphragm that controls the fuel/air mixture in the fuel injection failed. At that point the engine was still running but had lost most of its power and was surging badly out of control. With the loss of power, the airplane began to lose altitude with no hope of regaining it back. Running out of altitude and options, Henry knew of a sand bar past the confluence of the Big and Little Colorado Rivers by Kwagunt Rapids. It was perfect for an emergency landing and Henry nursed the airplane there. He arrived with little altitude to spare. Without missing a beat, as he continued to lose altitude, he calmly told his passengers to make sure their seat belts were securely fastened. His passengers thought nothing of it. This was, after all, a tour flight and they assumed they were landing along the river as part of the tour.
When Henry touched down on the soft sand and gravel bar, the main landing gear collapsed, quickly followed by the nose gear. He slid the plane to a stop and asked everyone to get out of the plane. It was baking hot in the bottom of the Canyon but at least the plane was not on fire. The plane’s radio worked, and Henry started making a mayday call.
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| The Cherokee on the ground 1967 courtesy Louis Hudgin |
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| The Cherokee on the ground 1967 courtesy Louis Hudgin |
Another Hudgin tour plane heard the call, and on returning to the Airport, got word to Wayne Learn that a helicopter rescue was needed. Wayne flew his Hiller into the Canyon, landed nearby, loaded everyone up and flew them out of the Canyon. With approval from the National Park Service, Wayne flew back a few weeks later, took the plane apart with Dan Lopez, and flew the pieces out.
Flash forward to January 2025. I’m on a 30-day river trip in the Grand Canyon. I have a few pictures Louis Hudgin let me copy. Those pictures were taken that afternoon in 1967. And I’m at Kwagunt in the morning and the shadows are all wrong! Regardless, the rematch was a lot of fun. The area where the plane landed was scoured by the Colorado River during the highwater of 1983. That may be why I found nothing of the damaged airplane and disassembly. Still, everything lined up and we were at the location where Henry and his passengers walked away from an emergency landing in the bottom of the Grand Canyon.
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| Rematch photo January 2025 courtesy Tom Martin |
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| Rematch photo January 2025 courtesy Tom Martin |
Thanks to technical advisor Louis Hudgin, his brother Doug, their mother Ellen, NPS Park Engineer Dan Cockrum, and Coach Dan Lopez.
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