Field Notes Doug Bell August 13, 1989 At first, Tom Blue thought it might not all go. But the duffle bags, etc went into the nose compartment. The cardboard & wooden boxes went into the aft compartment, and along the wall of the passenger area. Finally, 3 large propane tanks & 2 outboard motors went on. In all, the plane was pretty full. Mr. Blue asked us if we wanted to “kiss the ground” before we departed. Brian Fudly went to sit in the copilot seat, Sara Lense sat in the one next passenger seat on the left side of the craft, and I sat just in front of her on a shelf seat, just behind the cockpit’s headboard. My back faced the pilot. We shuddered down the runway at about 15:00. Long slow ascent, through the low clouds, then above them. When we were about 20 miles out to the N of Middleton Island, and at 6,600 ft altitude, I heard a loud pop”. The plane started shuddering, and the pilot through it into a 180° turn. At the same time, we were losing altitude, about 500-600 feet just in the turn. I saw the pilot working like mad to restart the now feathered left engine. To no avail. Sara, who had head phones on & could listen to the transmission, looked very scared. Her eyes “popped”, and tears began to well up. I leaned forward and held her knees. The pilot told us to don our life jackets. He had made a very good, instantaneous decision as soon as the motor went to head back to Middleton Island. He radioed in an emergency. What struck me during the flight was