Race Against Death...Galice Search

Background: Originally published December 20, 2006. This is a follow-up column of my previous blog entry "Missing Family Search Near Galice."

     People across the country mourned the loss of James Kim, the San Francisco man who became lost in the wilderness west of Galice and died from the elements. His father, Spencer Kim, spared no expense in trying to save his son. (Early reports said the father's name was James Kim, Sr.) Spencer Kim is chairman of CBOL corporation, which sells aerospace products to countries around the world.
     Spencer Kim hired three Carson helicopters from Merlin to search for his son. At a cost of $10,000 an hour, Kim spent well over a million dollars during the early days of the search. In an area with no cell phone communications, the father paid for a temporary cell phone tower to be installed, enabling searchers to better communicate with one another. Spencer Kim even had the clout to move a satellite in orbit, to better detect body heat sources. (When's the last time you heard of someone doing that in a missing person search?)
     Not only did Spencer Kim have money to assist in the search, but he exerted his influence to keep people away from the search. Kim was a very private person; he had the area declared an investigation scene, allowing the FAA to impose restricted no-fly space around the Kim vehicle, which was found on a BLM road. When the helicopter from KGW-TV in Portland landed at the Merlin airport, an FAA official was on hand to cite the KGW-TV pilot for violating the restricted airspace.
     Some people in the KOBI-TV newsroom could not understand the logic of Spencer Kim. One could think the additional eyes in the air looking for a missing person would be an asset. However, there were certain things that the father did not want the media to photograph. When one pool camera was eventually allowed on board a Carson helicopter to take pictures of the car, the pilot had instructions not to hover above the scene, but to always keep moving. That's because the father apparently did not want pictures taken of the vehicle from a certain angle.
     Despite the millions of dollars that Spencer Kim spent on the search, he was still a very humble man. Kim maintained a vigil at the Merlin airport, greeting helicopter pilots when they landed. The influential aerospace executive would carry food to the pilots, asking if they had enough to eat, and he pampered the pilots while they were on the ground.
     In the end, all the money and technology in the world wasn't enough to save James Kim. Many searchers and other Josephine County officials involved in the search felt as if they had lost a member of their own family when the story came to an end.