With its dramatic geography and extreme weather, the assumption was that it was too wild to control, a view that may have fueled federal indifference, leading to a legacy of underfunded infrastructure improvements.Įmergency workers transport an injured person after the midair crash in May. But as the Lower 48 transformed into a more regulated flying environment-with an infrastructure that included instrument landing systems, navigational aids, and certified weather observers-Alaska was left behind. A collective myth about these men emerged, fitting seamlessly into the legend of the untamed Last Frontier. Soon after the first air mail was transported in the territory in 1924, Alaskans came to rely on bush pilots, the bold aviators who willingly took on any conditions, navigated near blind, and survived repeated crashes (and, often, weeks alone in the wilderness). But the perception of that time still persists, and it makes everything we do harder.”

“Alaska aviation has come so far since the early days,” says Mike Bergt, president of Alaska Central Express, a large air taxi and commuter based in Anchorage. Watch Skydivers Jump From 33,000 Feet Over Mont Blanc Read article And for many of us familiar with aviation inside Alaska, this accident is just one more tragic result of a unique yet insidious problem: the lingering effects of the infamous bush pilot era. But crashes in Alaska rarely inspire more than a sympathetic shrug, especially outside the state. If commercial aircraft were going down this frequently in the Lower 48, the news would generate an immediate national conversation, and the government would be forced to act. In the first half of 2019, there were nine crashes involving air taxis and commuters resulting in 11 deaths. This compares with 44.7 for the entire rest of the United States, an area almost five times larger. Over the past three decades, Alaska, with a population smaller than Delaware, has suffered an average of 26.2 air taxi and small commuter accidents each year. Crashes are far more common than you’d expect in the state, and flying is far more dangerous than it needs to be. But as someone with 30 years of aviation experience in Alaska, I didn’t find this surprising. The crash made headlines across the country.

Everyone onboard, including Sullivan, was killed.Ī Coast Guard crew rescues passengers after a 2018 crash. The plane broke up in the air, resulting in a debris field nearly a half-mile long. As Sullivan struggled for control, the wing of his aircraft was torn apart. Seven miles from town, over the east side of George Inlet, Sullivan’s plane, shuddered as the right wing was struck from behind by the propeller of a second aircraft, another tour operator returning from Misty Fjords. This was Sullivan’s backyard, a place the 46-year-old pilot knew intimately, having grown up in a nearby logging camp, and his experience promised a once-in-a-lifetime adventure.Īfter a 90-minute tour, Sullivan turned his 1952 de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver-a single-engine floatplane driven by a powerful Pratt & Whitney engine-back to Ketchikan, flying a straight and steady course at 3,300 feet across Revillagigedo Island. The passengers, ranging in age from 37 to 56, wanted a bird’s-eye view of the monument, an unspoiled wilderness teeming with wildlife, waterfalls, and towering granite walls. His four passengers that day were off the Royal Princess, a megaship carrying nearly 5,000 guests and crew, and they’d purchased their tickets for Sullivan’s air taxi service while the ship was docked in the coastal community. THE KETCHIKAN SKIES were clear on the afternoon of May 13, and Mountain Air Service’s owner and sole pilot, Randy Sullivan, was doing what he did every spring: flying tourists through Alaska’s Misty Fjords National Monument.

Brush pilot