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Volunteer pilots are eyes in sky for Coast Guard ice breakers

This especially bad winter has kept U.S. Coast Guard cutters especially busy
Aboard a busy Coast Guard ice cutter 02:06

Fred Van Der Wilt and Darryl Laxson are the Coast Guard's eyes in the sky.

While U.S. Coast Guard ships break ice on the Hudson River, maintaining crucial shipping routes for vessels throughout the northeast, Van Der Wilt and Laxson guide them by snapping photos of the ice sheets from above.

"What they want to see is where the ice is, and what kind of ice it is," said Van Der Wilt as he coasted above the Hudson River in a small single-engine prop plane, taking pictures with his iPhone.

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"From the surface you only see a small area. They want to get the total area," he said.

The two pilots are part of the U.S. Coast Guard's Auxiliary Air Flotilla, a group of volunteer pilots who produce daily "ice reports" to Coast Guard units on their ice breaking missions. This has been one of the coldest winters in the last 10 years, and it has also seen some of the thickest ice on waterways - up to 12 inches in some areas of the Northeast.

The Coast Guard has dubbed the mission that Van Der Wilt and Darryl are supporting "RENEW," or operation Reliable Energy for Northeast Winters.

The USCG estimates that nearly 300 shipping vessels transit the Hudson River during winter months, carrying 10 million barrels of petroleum products to the Northeast communities.

"A couple of times we had ships that got stuck on the Hudson, and the Coast Guard will ask us to go over there and find out if the ship is still there," Van Der Wilt said. "Sometimes you find that the vessel has cut themselves loose. Then the coast guard can go back to their duties and what they were doing."

U.S. Coast Guard breaks the ice on New York’s Hudson River 02:09

Both pilots are a testament to the brutally cold temperatures experienced by the Northeast during the past winter months. Laxson has had over 10 years of experience flying ice missions for the Coast Guard. This one has been the most memorable.

"It's been one of the worst years that I've seen in many years. The ice has been all the way down the Hudson River and into the New York Harbor, which is very rare," Laxson said.

"This year it's common to see some of it," said Van Der Wilt in regards to the long thick sheets of ice that extended hundreds of feet offshore, "but even this is a lot. More than we normally see."

On a Thursday morning mission over the Hudson River, the two pilots had to turn back early, as the exact reason they were out there in the first place - bad weather - cut their mission short.

"Most of the time the weather forecast gives us clear mission. Today we had a bit of unexpected snow that came in," Laxson said. "The mission went fine for the southern part, we had to abort the mission as we got north."

As for their relationship with the Coast Guard, the more ice they report, the better.

"They love it, they absolutely love it," Van Der Wilt said. "I get a lot of reports from the different sectors and how appreciative they are, and that they see what's actually happening."

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