We just had another plane go down here in SouthEast Alaska, yesterday a Cherokee left Juneau for Gustavus and went down about 28 miles out. The weather was not good, searchers worked in shitty viz most of the day and found the plane late in the afternoon. The pilot is DOA, there were no passengers on board.

There but for the grace of god go I and many others as well.

Please refrain from speculating until more info comes in.

I won't speculate on causes, but will offer an observation. We all trust our engines... just some trust more than others. When I flew part 135 on floats out of Sitka and Ketchikan, I had more options to land if problems warranted it. Either weather or engine. I watched all those LAB single engine land planes working up and down the inside passage. Sure made me uncomfortable to watch. The shore lines are very rough in most places... with no beach to put it on. Pretty damn cold water too... even in summer. Very large trees right down to the water's edge. The actual statistics have shown that they can and do operate safely by and large over time. I just felt much better having floats under me.
Sorry to hear a pilot was lost there this week. It is both terrifying and incredibly beautiful to fly Alaska.

shorton wrote:The pilot is DOA,

I thought the Juneau newspaper reported that his body was half a mile from the wreck...

I can only assume he survived the initial crash, and tried to trek out before succumbing to the elements

Sad day.

And another on the south side of the west coast:

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Small-Plane-Crashes-in-West-Los-Angeles-165807886.html

That was the third aircraft operated by that company wrecked in three (yes) weeks. The first two were mechanical, passengers on board and all walked away...one Cherokee on a beach 2 mi from the threshold and the other a 206 that miraculously made the runway at the end of a Glacier Bay tour.

The weather the day of the fatality was extremely stable air with very low ceilings and poor vis, as it has been for a week. I just today got my airplane back from Hoonah where it had been sitting for a week due to the yellow stripe that runs broad across my back.

The air taxis are pushing it past any resemblance of legal VFR. With the synthetic vision avionics they have on board, it's real easy to cheat until the tv screen goes black. Some are getting a lethal dose of confidence in that stuff.

Condolences to family and friends.

gb

Hoonah along way from home GB....Lots of Wa WA on the way

Are there any more updates on this one?

It's terrible we've lost another member of the community...

Just learned that the pilot was on his way to pick up a friend of mine.

I didn't know the pilot but he was no rookie according to the news. In his 50's, had been flying the regionals down south and wanted to come fly small stuff in Alaska. Leads me to believe he was probably very experienced on the gauges. I have not looked at the actual crash scene but have flown over the general area many times. Not sure what happened...we'll have to wait for NTSB to publish their educated guess.