Robert J Turner

I know this guy, its a pleasure to know him, real nice fella….

INTERVIEW: MIKE DOYLE

Myriam Nafte - Werner Pürstl - Mike Doyle

Hana Gartner: WHAT WAS YOUR JOB IN THIS OPERATION?

Mike Doyle: Managing the search effort which means the dogs and the handlers and managing where they went. In other words the search areas, which we couldn’t tell them until we had gone through a little bit of mathematics.

In 1986 we had put together a program called SHIFTPOA which did probability theory.

Hana Gartner: THIS WAS A SOFTWARE?

Mike Doyle: We took a computer with us a laptop computer, heavy in those days of course but took it anyway. And the hotel provided us with a printer and other services that we required fully free. And we then crunched numbers. First of all we had to figure out what had been done and then we segmented the areas and crunched some numbers. And came up with some areas that we thought could be looked at again. And initially that’s where the dogs and the handlers went.

Hana Gartner: AND WHAT ELSE WOULD YOU PUT INTO THIS PROGRAM? DID YOU HAVE TO KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THE VICTIM?

Mike Doyle: Yes, yes specifically the point last seen. I mean where was he last seen? Well nobody knew where he was last seen. The car was found in the parking lot at the hotel so that was the last known position in LKP and that’s what we had to go with.

Hana Gartner: LKP?

Mike Doyle: LKP, last known position and that’s what we had to go with. Normally someone would have seen someone up on a hill over here and over there and that. We had nothing, we had nothing at all.

Not only that, the car wasn’t even discovered for a few days and it had been sitting in the parking lot all this time. So the trail was cold.

Hana Gartner: AND WHAT ABOUT DUNCAN MCPHERSON DID YOU HAVE TO FACTOR IN DID YOU HAVE TO LEARN WHO THIS PERSON WAS RATHER QUICKLY?

Mike Doyle: Yes, we had to do some interviewing. We interviewed the parents because they were the ones that were closest to him that were in Austria. And we talked with them and tried to get a little bit of background on what they thought he would do in certain circumstances and we factored that in as well.

Hana Gartner: SO WHAT KIND OF PROFILE DID YOU COME UP WITH? WHO WAS THE DUNCAN MCPHERSON YOU CAME TO KNOW?

Mike Doyle: Well we didn’t come to know him. I wish we had.

Hana Gartner: PERSONALITY WISE?

Mike Doyle: Normal, normal yeah not someone who’s extreme. Someone who’s out for an adventure but not someone who goes to an extreme to have that adventure.

Hana Gartner: CAUTIOUS?

Mike Doyle: Yeah, yeah.

Hana Gartner: NOW HOW WOULD THAT FACTOR INTO YOUR PROGRAM? HOW DOES THAT HELP YOU AS A SEARCH AND RESCUE MISSION?

Mike Doyle: Well that helps us in certain ways in that certain areas up in the glacier that were dangerous, we felt that he would probably not attempt to take further. He would stay in the bounds of areas that were not as dangerous as that.

…

Hana Gartner: WHAT WAS YOUR OBJECTIVE? WHAT WAS THE MISSIONS OBJECTIVE?

Mike Doyle: To see if there was any other areas that could be searched or to see if there were areas that should be searched again.

…

Hana Gartner: BUT YOU ALSO SAID YOU FOUND OUT THAT A WHOLE LOT OF PEOPLE GO MISSING ON THAT GLACIER EVERY YEAR. DID YOU ALSO PUMP INTO YOUR COMPUTER THE LAST KNOWN SIGHTS OF THOSE DISAPPEARANCES?

Mike Doyle: No we didn’t we didn’t learn that until the last day.

Hana Gartner: WHAT?

Mike Doyle: We didn’t learn that until the last day.

Hana Gartner: HOW COME?

Mike Doyle: It was something that was just given to us as an aside.

Hana Gartner: BUT WE FOUND OUT THAT JUST THE YEAR BEFORE A JAPANESE BRITISH GUY FELL INTO A INTO A CREVASSE NOT FAR FROM WHERE DUNCAN WAS THOUGHT TO HAVE GONE IN. SO YOU WEREN’T TOLD THIS? WOULDN’T THIS HAVE BEEN A LIKE A GRAND CLUE?

Mike Doyle: It would have been helpful yes.

Hana Gartner: I DON’T UNDERSTAND HERE. RECONSTRUCT WHAT HAPPENED WHY YOU DIDN’T GET THIS INFORMATION?

Mike Doyle: I don’t know whether they thought it was important. They didn’t want it out as far as the tourist are concerned because it would look bad. And so we weren’t made aware of that at the time.

…

Hana Gartner: SO WHY DID YOU PACK UP AND LEAVE?

Mike Doyle: We didn’t pack up and leave. We came to a conclusion, the search came to a conclusion and again we used the computer program. When you search an area once we, we give it a certain probability that the person would have been found based on the resources at the time the spacing all kinds of factors. When you do it twice, that probability gets higher. And when you do it a third time it’s even higher yet.

There’s no 100% but you get to a point where you go on to other areas. And of course you can search multiple areas at the same time if you have the resources to do so. And we eventually got to the point where our analysis showed that all of the areas in question were at that stage where if he had been there he would have been found.

So we talked and this was with the consensus of all of the search people that were there. We then did a briefing for the chief police and the family and some other people that had been in gotten involved at that point that were supporting the family. And gave them that, that briefing as well. The final decision of course was theirs but we felt at that time that based on no other information that we had taken it as far as we could.

Hana Gartner: SO WAS THAT GIVING UP WAS THAT A FAILURE?

Mike Doyle: That’s not giving up that’s just a suspension. We didn’t have new information. A suspension usually is unsuspended based on new information if there’s any kind of new information.

…

Hana Gartner: BUT WHAT WENT WRONG? WHAT DO YOU KNOW NOW THAT YOU SHOULD HAVE KNOWN THEN THAT WOULD HAVE HELPED YOU?

Mike Doyle: When we found out that he was found with his snowboard, which was a rented snowboard rented at the lodge the hotel and the police had been told when they were doing their investigation that it had been returned. Obviously it had not and if we had known that then, then we know we would have known, for sure he’s on that hill.

Hana Gartner: WHY WOULD YOU HAVE KNOWN THAT?

Mike Doyle: Because it wasn’t returned and the car was in the parking lot. But they were told it was returned, Somebody lied and again you fall back to what you know which is starting somewhere and we had to start with the car in the parking lot.

Hana Gartner: SO YOU HAD A LOT OF FACTS AND INFORMATION BUT IT SEEMS YOU HAD A FEW LIES AS WELL?

Mike Doyle: Yes misinformation.

…

Mike Doyle: Search and rescue depends on truth on getting the straight goods in order to develop a plan and; and get people in the right areas to look.

Hana Gartner: AND YOU GOT?

Mike Doyle: Well we didn’t get the full story! Neither did the police, it was not their fault. They were told a lie. I mean we did ask they said, yeah, it was returned.

Hana Gartner: SO YOU WEREN’T TOLD THAT THE SNOWBOARD AND THE GEAR WASN’T RETURNED? YOU WEREN’T TOLD THAT A YEAR BEFORE SOMEBODY HAD FALLEN INTO A CREVASSE?

Mike Doyle: Not in that area, no.

Hana Gartner: IN THAT AREA?

Mike Doyle: No, they weren’t no.

Hana Gartner: TWO KEY PIECES OF INFORMATION THAT WOULD HAVE MADE A DIFFERENCE?

Mike Doyle: Oh absolutely, you bet. I mean, that would have that would have caused us to rethink, redo, re-compute and change the numbers to a much higher probability in that area, much higher probability. And my god, we didn’t have the information. We didn’t have the information.

Hana Gartner: OVER THE YEARS DID YOU THINK ABOUT THIS OPERATION THIS MISSION? DID YOU THINK ABOUT DUNCAN MCPHERSON AND WHAT HAPPENED?

Mike Doyle: You always do. Any search that you don’t find the person you always keep thinking about and you always question yourself and you always say what could I have done? What could I have done differently?

Hana Gartner: SO WHEN YOU FOUND OUT THAT IN 2003 DUNCAN MCPHERSON WAS FOUND ON THE CONTROLLED SKI RUN NOT FAR FROM THE TOW YOUR REACTION WAS?

Mike Doyle: Dismay mostly. Not surprise, not surprised because he was, I thought, going to be found somewhere in that glacier. But certainly dismay that he was found that close.

…

Hana Gartner: SO AS A PROFESSIONAL WHO DOES THIS HOW – WHAT WAS YOUR RESPONSE WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION?

Mike Doyle: I was just very glad he was found. We get involved in searches for people who disappear and are not found. And some of those searches are very intense and very personal as far as your involvement and feelings are concerned. And I was just really happy for the MacPhersons that he was found and really happy that there was a conclusion as far as all of the efforts over years that had gone into that search or into finding him. Not the search per se but into finding him or trying to find him.