Surviving a plane crash and rappelling down 2,500-meter-high mountains: the story of Norman Ollestad

Eleven-year-old Norman Ollestad woke up to a bitter cold and someone’s muffled moans. His head was sparking, his consciousness was covered in a thick fog, and his left shoulder was aching. The boy struggled to get out of the cockpit of the Skyhawk, which looked like a crumpled tin can after the crash.

The brightest sunlight reflected off the vast snowy peaks stabbed his eyes. A couple of meters from the remains of the liner Norman found the source of the moans – it was his father’s girlfriend Sandra. The girl had a broken leg and collarbone, she was in deep shock and mumbled something incoherent.

February 19, 1979 “Skyhawk”, on board of which were the boy, his father Norman Sr. with his girlfriend and the pilot, crashed into the San Gabriel Mountains in Southern California. The boy’s dad and the pilot, who were in the nose of the airliner, died instantly. The child and Sandra were rescued but suffered varying degrees of injuries.

The tragedy occurred at an altitude of 2,500 meters above sea level. There was no help waiting, so Sandra and Norman’s chances of survival remained minimal…..

Norman Ollestad with his father

Norman was ready for the challenge

Norman’s first childhood memories are of the beach. Here he is just one and a half years old, and he is rushing on his father’s back (secured with a sling) on the waves of the Pacific coast on the famous Topanga. The boy never felt afraid of waves, even when he stood up on a surfboard on his own at age three.

“The ominous wall bent down and wrapped me up in its womb. It seemed I would be buried beneath it maimed or killed. But a moment later I was able to control the elements and was torn between panic and bliss. I was there, in that elusive space – a dream world filled with droplets of real happiness,” Ollestad says in one of his books.

Norman Sr. was a true adrenaline junkie, challenging either himself or those around him. When it got cold, he would fly to the snowy peaks to ski, conquering the steepest slopes.

Norman found no reason to leave his son at home. The boy began to imbibe his father’s passion long before he realized how much he wanted it himself. At the age of five, during one of his descents, the boy fell into a snow pit and almost suffocated, because his father found him missing only five minutes later.

Norman Ollestad Sr. surfs the waves with his one-year-old son

“We used to go to ski competitions with my dad and I almost always won – not many people knew that I learned to ski before I could walk,” Norman Jr. said ironically.

At the age of seven, the boy was already driving a car, and his father even sometimes dozed in the front seat when the two of them went on a trip of 1,000 kilometers to Mexico. Wandered through the jungle. Dad taught his son how to get food and water. The child’s mother Lucy at this time remained completely indifferent to the life of her son – the couple broke up when Norman was two years old.

The girl had an affair with a Frenchman. For several months the boy lived with her and his stepfather, but then Ollestad took his son and formalized his guardianship. To do this was not difficult: in between surfing Norman worked part-time legal advice, and also had great connections – for his shoulders were seven years of work in the FBI.

The boy’s dad was really cool. He left the Bureau of Investigation with scandal after a conflict with the all-powerful boss of the organization John Hoover – he ran the FBI for almost half a century. Ollestad Sr. published a book in which he described the unscrupulous techniques used in the bureau and also criticized Hoover’s management methods. For this reason, for a long time the crash of Norman’s plane in the mountains was attributed to the revenge of the secret services.

The actual tests proved to be more difficult

Thanks to intensive and versatile training at the age of 11, the boy could safely participate in the Olympics. A week before the tragedy, Norman won another slalom race.

“My father often told me to never give up. Even if you hit rock bottom, there’s always a chance to push off and surface. Regular training allowed me to always stay focused and quickly get rid of panic attacks,” Norman wrote.

Pulling himself together after the crash in the mountains was much harder than usual. Before, in difficult situations, he knew his father was there for him, and that gave him strength. But now came a feeling of complete emptiness and hopelessness. Responsibility not only for himself, but also for his father’s girlfriend Sandra, helped him come to his senses more quickly. Her broken limbs only allowed her to crawl… Norman made a sled out of the Skyhawk wreckage and dragged the girl down the slope. A heavy blizzard, deep snow, and rapidly melting strength made it difficult to move.

Father and son on snowy peaks

“At one point I crouched down in the snow and either dozed off or passed out. The wind was whipping my cheeks as if millions of bees were stinging my face at the same time, and it was impossible to hide from them. When I woke up, I didn’t see Sandra! And then only realized that the wind had blown the sled in the direction of the ice chute. She was exhausted and could not resist the slow slide into the abyss. For the first time in my life I experienced animal terror. Being alone in such a situation was the most difficult challenge,” Norman says.

The boy was lucky that the storm soon subsided and he was able to get some rest and recover. With his frostbitten hands, Norman struggled to make a ski out of tree debris and slowly slid down the slope.

Most likely, if Sandra had not died, the guy would not have been able to get out – he barely had the strength to climb on his own. The hardest part was the section where the mountain went at 45 degrees.

“I gave myself my word that I wouldn’t fall off. I would cling with my teeth, glued to the summit. Memories of my father helped – I realized that I was fighting not only for myself, but also for him. If I hadn’t survived then, his efforts would have been in vain,” recalls Ollestad Jr.

Return and life after

Exhausted and barely on his feet, Norman made his way to Mount Baldy ski resort 15 hours after the crash. Interestingly, people on the slopes initially mistook him for a wolf cub and began calling for security guards.

Immediately arrived medical team gave the guy first aid, and in half an hour he was transported by helicopter to one of the clinics in Los Angeles. Severe hypothermia, frostbite of all limbs (especially the left hand – a few fingers Ollestad still feels bad), cut by wind and snow face required a month and a half of recovery.

The boy’s mother was in Europe at the time and did not arrive until six months later. By then, Sandra’s parents had taken custody of him. Norman continued skiing, dreamed of playing hockey at a high level, but after prolonged exertion his legs were very sore – the blood circulation was affected.

The guy found his calling in creativity. He graduated from the film school of the University of California, where he studied writing. Ollestad set a goal to write a book about his miraculous rescue. To do so, in 2006 he even climbed the mountain where his father died.

The creation “Mad About the Storm” saw the light of day in the summer of 2009 and was a huge success in the United States. The book made the top ten bestseller lists of The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times, and Amazon recognized it as the best book of the year.

Today, Ollestad lives in Los Angeles, works as a journalist and continues to write. In 2016, his book The French Woman and Her Mother was published. Norman is also raising his son Noah, who he teaches everything his father instilled in him: perseverance, self-reliance, unity with nature, and, of course, love.