Post by Dave Homewood on Jul 30, 2022 12:21:55 GMT 12
This is really sad. 
From The Press dated the 6th of October 1967.
Death After Two Months Beside Aircraft
REDDING (California), Oct. 5.
A 16-year-old girl and her mother fought for two months for their lives in the freezing wreckage of their plane which crashed near a snow-capped mountain peak last March, her diary disclosed.
“Today is my sixteenth birthday. I wanted to be rescued today,” she scribbled in the makeshift diary on the back of an airman’s guide. That was on April 30, and rescue never came for Carla Corbus or for her mother, Phillis.
Their remains were found near the plane today. Search parties have found no trace of her stepfather, Alvin Oien, a 59-year-old hotel owner from Portland, Oregon, who left the plane six days after it crashed on March 11 to seek help.
On May 4, just four days after the entry about her birthday, Carla made her last entry in the diary: “Today is a bright and drippy, drippy day. We are completely soaked.”
A deer hunter discovered the wreckage of the single-engine plane about 4000 ft up the summit of Bully Choot Mountain, about 35 miles west of Ridding. Search parties had been concentrating their hunt for the missing plane miles north of the site where it actually crashed.
The diary listed their injuries, but gave no details of how they managed to keep alive for two months. Carla frequently referred to herself in the third person. She apparently escaped with the fewest injuries. She reported that she injured her back, cut her left knee and had a sore right ankle. Her stepfather had a broken right arm, crushed ribs, cuts on his forehead and pains in his back. Her mother had a broken ankle, a broken arm and numerous cuts.
The diary disclosed that Carla tried to walk through the snow for help two days after the crash, but returned because it was "snowing and foggy and there was no visibility.’’
The diary added: “Her feet were frozen and she lost her shoes.”
Eventually her stepfather, whom she called Al, left the plane to seek help and Carla noted in her diary: “1.15 p.m. Al shouted O.K. as he crossed the gully on his way for help.”
A week later she wrote: “Fear Al did not make it to help. Getting weak.”
The Oien family had left Portland bound for San Francisco where they had planned to meet Oien’s son, Alvin, aged 30, and continue on to Texas. The son, an airline pilot, spent 107 days in North California after the crash but, he recalled today, during most of that time the weather was so foul he could not fly to hunt for the lost plane. Like others, he had no idea that survivors were still alive then. The diary told the tragic story.
The diary told of melting snow to drink, but it never mentioned food. It spoke of covering the wreckage with a tarpaulin to keep out the snow. The first entry in the diary was made less than half an hour after the plane was last heard from. Its final radio report was to Medford, Oregon, at 11.50 a.m., on March 11.
There was a 15-day search by the Civil Air Patrol (C.A.P.) immediately after the crash. “It is hard to find an airplane in the snow sometimes,” said Major Hazel Smith, of the C.A.P. “It was a miserable two weeks. We’re absolutely floored to think someone had lived.”
From The Press dated the 6th of October 1967.Death After Two Months Beside Aircraft
REDDING (California), Oct. 5.
A 16-year-old girl and her mother fought for two months for their lives in the freezing wreckage of their plane which crashed near a snow-capped mountain peak last March, her diary disclosed.
“Today is my sixteenth birthday. I wanted to be rescued today,” she scribbled in the makeshift diary on the back of an airman’s guide. That was on April 30, and rescue never came for Carla Corbus or for her mother, Phillis.
Their remains were found near the plane today. Search parties have found no trace of her stepfather, Alvin Oien, a 59-year-old hotel owner from Portland, Oregon, who left the plane six days after it crashed on March 11 to seek help.
On May 4, just four days after the entry about her birthday, Carla made her last entry in the diary: “Today is a bright and drippy, drippy day. We are completely soaked.”
A deer hunter discovered the wreckage of the single-engine plane about 4000 ft up the summit of Bully Choot Mountain, about 35 miles west of Ridding. Search parties had been concentrating their hunt for the missing plane miles north of the site where it actually crashed.
The diary listed their injuries, but gave no details of how they managed to keep alive for two months. Carla frequently referred to herself in the third person. She apparently escaped with the fewest injuries. She reported that she injured her back, cut her left knee and had a sore right ankle. Her stepfather had a broken right arm, crushed ribs, cuts on his forehead and pains in his back. Her mother had a broken ankle, a broken arm and numerous cuts.
The diary disclosed that Carla tried to walk through the snow for help two days after the crash, but returned because it was "snowing and foggy and there was no visibility.’’
The diary added: “Her feet were frozen and she lost her shoes.”
Eventually her stepfather, whom she called Al, left the plane to seek help and Carla noted in her diary: “1.15 p.m. Al shouted O.K. as he crossed the gully on his way for help.”
A week later she wrote: “Fear Al did not make it to help. Getting weak.”
The Oien family had left Portland bound for San Francisco where they had planned to meet Oien’s son, Alvin, aged 30, and continue on to Texas. The son, an airline pilot, spent 107 days in North California after the crash but, he recalled today, during most of that time the weather was so foul he could not fly to hunt for the lost plane. Like others, he had no idea that survivors were still alive then. The diary told the tragic story.
The diary told of melting snow to drink, but it never mentioned food. It spoke of covering the wreckage with a tarpaulin to keep out the snow. The first entry in the diary was made less than half an hour after the plane was last heard from. Its final radio report was to Medford, Oregon, at 11.50 a.m., on March 11.
There was a 15-day search by the Civil Air Patrol (C.A.P.) immediately after the crash. “It is hard to find an airplane in the snow sometimes,” said Major Hazel Smith, of the C.A.P. “It was a miserable two weeks. We’re absolutely floored to think someone had lived.”
