A Haines man and a couple flying from Juneau to Yakutat are missing after their plane never arrived at its destination.
Coast Guard public affairs officer Mike Salerno said the owner and operator of the missing 1948 Beechcraft Bonanza is Samuel “Sam” Wright of Haines. Wright was flying two passengers Hans Munich and Tanya Hutchins to their home in Yakutat on Saturday but the plane never made it.
Munich and Hutchins own Coastal Air Service – formerly Yakutat Coastal Airlines – where Munich has been flying for decades. Wright is also an experienced pilot with decades of flying in Southeast Alaska.
The Coast Guard, Alaska Rescue Coordination Center, Civil Air Patrol and Alaska State Troopers called off their search Monday evening after three days of searching for signs of the missing plane in the Fairweather Mountain Range.
Coast Guard public affairs officer Mike Salerno said if the agency got more information, it could resume its search.
“The decision to suspend is never easy,” he said. “Our condolences are with the family members of the passengers on board.”
The three left Juneau on Saturday and were reported overdue that evening.
“A Coast Guard helicopter from Air Station Sitka, Coast Guard HC-130 from Air Station Kodiak, and also Coast Guard Cutter Reef Shark were all dispatched to the scene on Saturday evening when we received the alert,” Salerno said. “Then Sunday and today’s efforts have included searches from aircraft … MH-60T helicopters, HC-130s and as well as AC-130s from the Air Force and also search assets from the Civil Air Patrol.”
The plane stopped emitting its radar signal near Mount Crillon, which is at the southern end of the range, according to the Coast Guard.
“[It’s] where we saw the FlightAware tracks end,” Salerno said. “We’ve also been in contact with the FAA, the National Transportation Safety Board as well to try to leverage as many resources as we can to try to narrow down the search area.”
Narrowing down the search area wasn’t the only problem searchers ran into.
“It’s a very mountainous area, the flight tracking stops at around 10,000 feet which also makes it a difficult search area for some of our search assets, especially with the cloud coverage,” Salerno said. “I can tell you that at that altitude the search assets have been encountering a lot of cloud coverage.”
• This story was originally published by the Chilkat Valley News. KHNS reporter Alain D’Epresmenil contributed to this story.
