The Navajo are an extremely interesting and complex people.  Formerly fierce warriors who warred with neighboring tribes, the Spaniards, Mexicans and finally newly arrived Americans, they were finally defeated by the U.S. Army commanded by the famous “Mountain Man” Kit Carson in 1863.  His scorched earth campaign ended with their surrender and the infamous “Long Walk” from Canyon de chelly to the Bosque Redondo in southern New Mexico, a distance of 300 miles, during which many died of exposure and exhaustion.

After the “Treaty of Bosque Redondo” in 1868, the tribe was allowed to return to their former homeland.  Theirs is now the largest reservation of any Indian tribe, encompassing nearly 28,000 square miles of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado in the “Four Corners” region of those states.  The Navajos are unerringly polite people, with unique tribal customs and beliefs, many described in an excellent series of novels by author Tony Hillerman who was made an honorary member of the tribe by the Navajo Tribal Council. Because of their unique language, many volunteered to become the famous Navajo “Code Talkers” for the U.S. Marines in the Pacific campaigns of World War II.  A fascinating story in itself.

Unfortunately, many problems which plague a large number of Native Americans also exist on the Navajo Reservation.  One of them, abuse of drugs and alcohol among teenagers, reared it’s ugly head one dark night as I approached the tribal run airport at Shiprock, NM in the air ambulance I was flying to pick up a patient from the Shiprock BIA Hospital to take him to Albuquerque for specialized care.

Recently, the tribe had spent the money to install runway lighting on the single runway, allowing it to be used at night as well as in the daytime.  It was much closer to the hospital than the other closest airport, which was at Farmington, NM, nearly 45 minutes away.  They had also installed a “line shack” with a telephone and a space for pilots to check the weather and file flight plans.

As I approached the airport over the darkness of the terrain, the runway appeared to be much shorter than it’s published length on my charts.  However, total length is often difficult to judge, especially at night with the bright city lights of the town of Shiprock just beyond the airport, which was situated on a mesa south of town.

As I was about to land on the very end of the runway, my landing lights illuminated the fact that I was indeed flying over an unlit portion.  I aborted the landing, and pulled up to go around and land in the opposite direction on the lighted portion. My landing lights would allow me to safely roll out and stop on the unlighted section.  I touched down, and shortly rolled past the lighted area.  I was shocked to see that the runway was littered with broken beer bottles and cans.  What was up with that?

As I taxied onto the ramp area I saw that the new line shack was now a charred skeleton of a building.  The Navaho Nation Tribal Police car was there, as well as an ambulance from the BIA Shiprock Hospital, who would take my medical team to the hospital to receive the patient.  The ramp was littered with broken bottles and cans as well.  I soon found out what had transpired.

The improvements to the Shiprock airport had been big news on the reservation, as it was going to be a vast improvement in the time it took critical Navajo patients to get to larger medical facilities in Albuquerque, Phoenix or even Salt Lake City or Denver after dark.  That time savings could literally mean the difference between life or death.  So, there had been a big ceremony at the airport with ribbon cutting, speeches, and New Mexico, Federal and Tribal dignitaries galore.

That was on a Friday.  The very next night a horde of Navajo teenagers arrived at the scene for a “beer bust” which quickly got out of hand.  They got the runway lights turned on and proceeded to have drag races down the runway, with the spectators throwing bottles and cans at the competitors they didn’t like.  Then, someone got the bright idea of having a bonfire.  Heck, why not just burn down the new line shack?

Finally, some mental midget decided to eliminate the runway lights by a race between two pickup trucks on opposite sides of the runway.  They tied chains to the cables, hooked them onto the truck bumpers, and started down the runway, pulling up the lights in sequence.  There was a splice at midpoint, and the cables broke there, so they didn’t destroy all of them, just half. 

By that time the Navajo Nation Fire Department and Tribal Police arrived, attracted by the flames of the burning line shack, and broke up the party.  As luck would have it, mine was the first plane to arrive after the damage was done.

So, the Shiprock airport reverted to a “Day – VFR” facility, and air ambulance flights returned to using Farmington as the nighttime airport for the Shiprock Hospital.  I’m sure that some Navajo people perished as a result of the senseless vandalism, perpetrated by their own youth.  What a shame……