ANCHORAGE, Alaska — In the end, after experiencing every father's nightmare, Roger Brown was offered a token of consolation by the military men who came to his aid.

A day after his 9-year-old son died when he drove a snowmobile into a 140-foot hole on an Alaska glacier, Brown guided an Army mountaineering team to the site. And when more than a ton of snow had been pulled away, and the body of the Shjon Brown had been dug out, soldiers from the Alaska Northern Warfare Training Center made room for Roger Brown near the lip of the deadly hole.

"The No. 1 man bringing the stuff up was one of our lead mountaineers, 1st Sgt. (Tom) Dow," said Maj. William Prayner, who directed the recovery. "We put the father right next to him, tied in. After we had packaged Shjon up, we brought him up, and his father, with the first sergeant, brought him out of the hole."

---

The tragedy unfolded Saturday in the Hoodoo Mountains, the site of the Tesoro Arctic Man Classic, a race in which a skier descends a slope, grabs a towline trailing a snowmobile, gets pulled up an second hill, then descends to the finish line. The fastest skiers cross the finish line in about four minutes.

The race draws thousands of Alaskans who camp along the Richardson Highway and use snowmobiles to enjoy riding on the sunny, warm April days.

The Browns were among them, and with friends, made their way Saturday afternoon up the West Gulkana Glacier.

As Roger Brown took a break on a hillside, he watched his son drive around a mound. When Shjon did not reappear, Roger Brown traced the boy's tracks and discovered he had driven into a moulin, a hole formed when water on the glacier's surface melts ice and flows to an underground river below.

The hole in summer would have been about 30 feet in diameter, said Maj. Prayner, who heads the Alaska Northern Warfare Training Center. But a winter of heavy snowfall had hidden the hazard, and a snow bridge had partially formed across the hole.

"The problem is, when you get on top of the snow bridge, you can force a section of it to fall down into the hole," Prayner said.

An emergency room doctor with climbing experience, identified by the Anchorage Daily News as Jeff Baurick, was in the area. Tied to a snowmobile with its skis buried in snow, he rappelled into the hole and found the child's helmet, goggles and snowmobile.

Alaska State Troopers called the Army for assistance, Prayner said. Soldiers from the northern training center already were in the area. He ordered them to load gear onto a Small Unit Support Vehicle, or SUSV. The tracked, articulated vehicle carries far more than a snowmobile, and more important, could be used to anchor ropes for mountaineers to descend into hole.

The soldiers reached the glacier in time to help pull Baurick from the hole, and his observations led troopers to conclude the boy had died.

The training center needed the Defense Department's permission to participate in a recovery mission. That came Sunday.

A dozen soldiers and a second SUSV returned to the moulin with troopers, Roger Brown and three of his friends. The soldiers used pictures taken by Baurick to plan the recovery.

"It was a straight drop down with a considerable amount of snow overhanging what would be in the summer the full opening of the hole," Prayner said.

The soldiers positioned logs near the lip to provide stability. The overhang was 10 to 14 feet deep.

At 2 p.m. Sunday, Staff Sgt. Stephon Flynn, 36, a flight medic who works at the center, and Stephen Decker, 46, a civilian instructor, went over the lip and into the hole.

"There was a lot of snow, and a lot of snow had fallen into the hole on top of Shjon and his snowmachine, so we had to be very careful not to keep more snow falling in, to keep Flynn and Decker form getting covered," Prayner said.

On the floor of the hole, only about 15 feet in diameter, Flynn and Decker roped themselves in. They probed the bottom for stability.

They dug a shallow cave in the wall where they could take shelter from falling show. Every time a load was lifted, they entered the cave. Parts of the snow bridge tumbled down.

"They thought at some point they might get buried for a little bit," Prayner said. Three soldiers at the surface were ready to quickly descend if that happened.

Flynn and Decker spent six hours in the hole. Mostly they probed, dug snow and loaded it into "mule" bags that had to be lifted out.

Soldiers at the surface couldn't risk adding the weight of pulleys to the logs at the lip. Two roped-in soldiers at the lip used brute force to pull up the bags, which weighed more than 100 pounds each.

Other soldiers, or Brown and his companions, would drag off the bags, empty them and return them to be sent back down the hole.

The men pulled 30 bags over the lip — more than 3,000 pounds of snow, with Flynn and Decker waiting in their cave for each load to clear.

At 9:30 p.m., they found something. A metal probe had touched something soft — the boy's boot.

It took two more hours to remove the snow around Shjon's body. He was lifted to the surface at 11:30 p.m.

The body was moved to an SUSV, where Roger Brown and his friends could grieve in private.

The soldiers at the surface switched ropes, which had been damaged moving up snow, and helped Flynn and Decker climb out. The group met Shjon's mother and the boy's stepfather at the Army's Black Rapids training facility.

The soldiers were prepared to stay on the glacier at least two days.

"This one went very smooth, and I'm very proud of our men," Prayner said. "But it's difficult to be excited about it because of the circumstances and the tragedy." 

 

An Alaska State Troopers helicopter with three people on board crashed while on a night rescue mission and no survivors were found, authorities said Sunday.

About 10 p.m. Saturday, the helicopter, carrying a pilot and a trooper, picked up a snowmobiler who had been reported stranded near Talkeetna north of Anchorage, the State Troopers said in a dispatch. 

The pilot radioed that the copter was en route to meet medics, but it didn't arrive, the dispatch said. A search aircraft found the crash site about 9:30 a.m. Sunday but the dispatch said there were no survivors.

---

Identities of the dead were being withheld while authorities contacted family members, NBC station KTUU of Anchorage reported. The cause of the crash is under investigation.

"This tragedy is going to have a very profound effect on all the employees of the Department of Public Safety, the Alaska State Troopers, [and] the search and rescue community, " troopers spokeswoman Megan Peters told KTUU. "Helo-1 is our main helicopter that goes out, and Helo-1 has pulled so many people from the Alaska wilderness."

The snowmobiler had been stranded near Larson Lake, which is east of Talkeetna, about 90 miles north of Anchorage.

The helicopter was a Eurocopter AS350, built by Aerospatiale. Versions of the AS350 have been used in high-altitude rescues in the Himalaya, and one was able to touch down on the summit of Mount Everest in 2005.  

Authorities in Alaska have charged a suspect in the mysterious killing last year of two employees at a U.S. Coast Guard communications station in Kodiak, it was reported Friday.

NBC News’ Anchorage affiliate KTUU and the Anchorage Daily News both reported the charges Friday evening, citing a written statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

The statement provided no detail on what led authorities to the suspect, identified as Kodiak resident James Michael Wells, KTUU reported. It simply said he had been charged with murder in the deaths of James Hopkins and Richard Belisle and is expected to appear in federal court in Anchorage next week.

---

Hopkins, a Coast Guard electrician's mate, and Belisle, a retired boatswain's mate and civilian employee, were found dead at the Coast Guard station on April 12, 2012.

KTUU reported in May that the FBI asked if anyone had seen two vehicles, a white 2002 Dodge Ram pick-up truck and a blue 2001 Honda CR-V. It said that vehicles matching the descriptions belonged to James and Nancy Wells of Bell Flats, a Kodiak Island town about 12 miles from downtown Kodiak, and that the FBI had searched the couple’s property.

Authorities declined to comment on the report. James Wells, a civilian rigger who worked alongside Belisle and Hopkins repairing antennas, told KTUU at the time. “It’s our policy not to talk to anybody.”

The communication station, which monitors May Day air and maritime traffic, is about two miles from the main Coast Guard base on Kodiak, an island about 250 miles southwest of Anchorage. About 6,300 people live in the island's main town of Kodiak, where the base is located. The base has about 1,000 Coast Guard personnel and several hundred civilian employees.

 

A flight from Los Angeles to Seattle was diverted to Portland late Thursday after one of the pilots lost consciousness.

Alaska Airlines said Flight 473's first officer flew the Boeing 737-700 to Portland International Airport after the captain became ill over Oregon.

The plane landed safely at 9:05 p.m. local time (12:05 a.m. ET Friday) and paramedics took the pilot to the hospital, airline spokesman Paul McElroy said.

The Seattle Times reported that a doctor on board was able to tend to the captain at the front of the plane.

---

There were 116 passengers and five crew members on the flight, which had been due to arrive in Seattle at 9:30 p.m. local time (12.30 a.m. ET).

The captain has been flying with Alaska Airlines for 28 years, while the first officer has been with the airline 11 years, McElroy said.

NBC station KING5 said it was not known what caused the pilot to pass out.

About 20 passengers were re-accommodated on other flights to Seattle, while the rest took a flight scheduled to land in Seattle at 1:15 a.m. local time Friday (4:15 a.m. ET).

Related:

Full travel coverage from NBC News

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Alaska cleanup crews last year found some beaches covered with polystyrene foam that floated across the Pacific from the 2011 Japanese tsunami and threatens wildlife, a state official told legislators on Tuesday.

A main concern of environmentalists and officials is that the lightweight specks, which have been broken down by storms and waves, will harm small animals. They could choke or die slowly from malnutrition if pieces block their intestinal system, officials say.

So far, no dead birds have been found on the beaches, Elaine Busse Floyd, acting environmental health director for the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, told lawmakers in her report. But officials are on the lookout for animals harmed by the ingested foam, she said.

Polystyrene foam accounted for 30 percent of the weight of the total debris, compared to the usual 5 percent rate before the tsunami, she said. Considering that it is so light, "it's a huge volume."

---

Closed-cell extruded polystyrene is often referred to as Styrofoam, a trademarked name owned by Dow Chemical Co., which manufactures it for insulation and crafts, among other uses. It is not biodegradable because it resists breaking down in sunlight, so it can in theory last forever.

Scattered bits of foam are difficult to retrieve from the environment and are easily mistaken by animals for morsels of food, Floyd told a legislative committee in Juneau.

Animals are already munching on tsunami polystyrene foam, said Chris Pallister, president of the nonprofit Gulf of Alaska Keeper which conducted most of last year's beach cleanups.

"We have personally seen plenty of animals eating it, pecking at it, playing with it," Pallister said.

Cleanup crews have spotted foam bits in scat from bears and other animals, he said. "The question is, are animals metabolizing that or is it breaking down and being released into the environment?"

Pallister's group worked from May to October to clean up about 300 miles (483 km) of beaches in outlying coastal areas. Other groups conducted more short-term cleanup projects.

Already, Gulf of Alaska Keeper is preparing for next summer's cleanup. "It's a pretty amazing sight when you go out to the coast and see nothing but Styrofoam as far as you can see," he said.

The material that has washed ashore in Alaska from the 2011 tsunami in Japan includes foam buoys and insulation ripped from people's homes, officials said.

Debris from the tsunami has also washed ashore in other U.S. states on the Pacific Ocean, including in Washington and Oregon where a Japanese dock turned up on the coast.

But the problem is particularly acute in Alaska because it has a longer coastline than other states, and many beaches are remote which makes cleanup difficult and expensive, Floyd said. 

Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

A 7.5-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Alaska near midnight on Friday, the U.S. Geological Survey said, prompting tsunami warnings and advisories down the coast of Alaska and Canada's British Columbia.

All tsunami warnings, watches and advisories were later canceled, the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center (of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) said.

The Alaska Tsunami Warning Center said the waves were too small to pose a threat, reaching just six inches above normal sea level in places such as Sitka and Port Alexander.

"Initially, in the first 15 to 20 minutes, there might have been a bit of panic," Sitka Police Chief Sheldon Schmitt told The Associated Press. But he said things calmed down as the town waited for the all clear and the tsunami warning was canceled by 2 a.m., according to the Daily Sitka Sentinel.

---

Residents of Sitka gathered at the high school early Saturday, bundled up with pillows in tow, waiting for more information.

The quake struck in the Pacific Ocean about 60 miles southwest of Port Alexander, Alaska, at a depth of about 6 miles at 11:58 p.m. local time (3:58 a.m. ET), the USGS said.

Initially, the USGS reported that the temblor had a magnitude of 7.7, but it later downgraded the quake's strength to 7.5.

Read real-time updates from BreakingNews.com

A 6-inch rise in sea level was reported in Port Alexander, but there were no early reports of damage.

A tsunami warning was issued for the coastal areas of British Columbia from the north tip of Vancouver Island to Cape Suckling, but it was later canceled.

"A tsunami was generated by this event but does not pose a threat to these areas," NOAA said in a statement. "Some areas may see small sea level changes. The decision to re-occupy hazard zones must be made by local authorities."

The NOAA also issued tsunami advisories from the Washington state-British Columbia border to the north tip of Vancouver Island. They were later canceled.

According to the NOAA, a tsunami warning means "that a tsunami with significant widespread inundation is expected or is already occurring."

There was no danger of a tsunami hitting Hawaii, according to the NOAA's Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.

The Associated Press contributed reporting.

More content from NBCNews.com:

• 'We've lost respect for life': Detroit records deadliest year in decades
• What Supreme Court? Gay marriage battles rage in the states
• Fiscal cliff deal includes at least $67.9 billion for special interests
• State worker accused of showing Adam Lanza's body to husband
• Court: Flipping the bird at a cop doesn't warrant arrest
• Profanity-laced YouTube video gets officer fired
• Video: ‘Pecs,’ ‘legs,' ‘frisking’: Biden works the room at photo-op

Follow US news from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook