I don't feel angry at them for "Not doing it right". I feel a great sense of loss as they did. They were on a tight budget & running out of money. Hind sight is.... of course it is, but a very wealthy individual could have possible done it better, but he tried.
Being on a tight budget is no excuse for doing things in a sloppy and dangerous way. The fact that they lost the Kee-Bird was not the tragic end to an otherwise well executed plan as some seem to think. What it was is a culmination of a expedition that was a dangerous farce from the beginning. I find it hard to believe that others went along so willingly, from the very beginning when he's like
"Yea, this Caribou is already way over gross, and we have to land it in a muddy untested swamp, but it'll be fine, climb on." I would have been outta there.
By the time they are putting propane in airplane tires, losing engines in flight from poor maintenance, a mechanic dying because they can't get him out because said poorly maintained plane is grounded and he has no emergency contingency plans (really, he couldn't have found somebody with a Maule, or Porter, or something willing to stand by at Thule for part runs or evacs?), trying to plow a 3,000ft runway with a tiny Cat then taxiing at high speed over ice mounds
AND running a gasoline APU from a gas can suspended from above by bungees to gravity feed it
WHILE doing said crazy taxiing.
Anyway like I said the whole thing makes me angry, so in the interest of my happiness, I'm finished with this thread.