Volunteer pilot conducting successful rescue missions in NC says he was stopped, threatened with arrest

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A South Carolina pilot who helped stranded Hurricane Helene victims with his helicopter was reportedly threatened with arrest for doing so.

Jordan Seidhom, the former head of the Chesterfield County Sheriff’s Office narcotics unit, jumped into action last Saturday after he saw a troubling Facebook post from a family stranded on a mountain in Banner Elk, North Carolina.

View the Facebook post below:

“My family – my husband and I, our 4-year-old son and 2 doodle dogs – are in Eagles Nest, in Banner Elk, NC,” the post reads. “We are in an Airbnb by the Sportsman’s Lodge and up towards the winery.”

“There are also 2 helipads here. We are trapped with no way out – even if they clear the 6 miles to the main gate. It has been confirmed that Banner Elk is now only accessible by air,” it continues.

Sitting at home in South Carolina, Seidhom decided he wanted to help, so he brought some bottled water and food aboard his helicopter and took off with his son, a high school junior and volunteer firefighter, by his side.

“I thought, I have a helicopter, maybe I can help,” he later recalled to Charlotte station WJZY, also known as Queen City News.

“Seidhom is a Class 1 certified law enforcement officer and a pilot with nearly 1,400 flight hours,” the station notes.

But first things first, he hit up Charlotte-Douglas International Airport’s Air Traffic Control tower for permission to fly over the airport, which evidently is right next to a gap in the mountains that he needed to pass to reach the stranded family.

Once past the gap, he landed at a nearby airport to speak and coordinate with law enforcement officers and first responders.

“Seidhom said he left the supplies he collected at a drop-off point for the family in the Facebook post, then lifted off toward Black Mountain to find where he could help,” according to WJZY.

He wound up rescuing four victims that day before going to bed at a pilot lounge at a nearby airport. The next morning he and his son were inundated with more requests for help on social media.

(Video Credit: Queen City News)

“My parents are stuck there,” one woman said in a voicemail she left for the pair. “If you receive this, please give me a call back. Thank you.”

“This is multiple phone calls I’ve received like this,” Seidhom told Queen City News. “Voicemails, text messages and you could hear people desperate for help.”

Committed to helping more, the pair once again set off in their helicopter. But this time there was trouble on the horizon. At one point during the day, he and his son ran into a group of first responders.

“Once we landed where emergency personnel were, I was met by a fire chief or maybe a captain, and he asked me who I was,” Seidhom recalled. “I told him who I was, who I was with, just a local volunteer.”

“I told him my background experience, law enforcement, firefighting, and pilot and he immediately started helping with coordination. He gave me radio frequencies to coordinate with them on, set up a landing area for me to come back with the other victim, and just basically started the rescue efforts; the policies and procedures that you would take coordinating with someone from an outside source or outside agency,” he added.

All was well up until the local fire chief or assistant chief turned up and “shut down the whole operation.”

“He originally asked me who I was,” Seidhom explained. “I gave him the same information, who I was with, my background experience, law enforcement, and firefighting. And his response was, if you have that kind of experience, you should know that you should be coordinating with us. And I said, I’ve been coordinating with everybody as I’ve been here just the day before, speaking with local law enforcement, other rescue personnel.”

But that’s when the chief reportedly ordered him to scram and not return.

“Seidhom said he asked the official for a specific reason he was ordering him to stop his rescue efforts. ‘You’re interfering with my operation,’ is the reason Seidhom said the fire official gave,” according to Queen City News.

There was just one problem. He’d dropped his son off nearby with one of the victims earlier and needed to retrieve him.

“I’m going back and getting my copilot,” he told the chief.

“If you turn around and go back up the mountain, you’re going to be arrested,” the chief replied.

“Well, sir, I’m going back to get my copilot, I don’t know what to tell you,” he responded.

That’s when the chief called more officers over, and again threatened to arrest him.

Without any other options, Seidhom retrieved his son and returned home, leaving the stranded victim for the official first responders to get to him.

“Within a half-hour of the fire official and the arrest threat, Seidhom said a Temporary Flight Restriction was set up over the Lake Lure gap, right in the center of where he and the fire official faced off minutes earlier,” Queen City News notes.

The restriction was eventually lifted, but Seidhom worries about how many lives may have been affected because of it.

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V. Saxena is a staff writer with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University. Saxena also contributes to BizPac Review.

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