Search on for Missing Plane

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Category: News

Created on Monday, 22 July 2024 17:04

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By SHANNON HAUGLAND

Sentinel Staff Writer

The Coast Guard and other agencies continued searching today in the Fairweather range for a 1948 Beechcraft with three aboard, reported missing Saturday en route on a charter flight from Juneau to Yakutat.

The Coast Guard identified those missing as Samuel Wright of Haines, and Hans Munich and Tanya Hutchins of Yakutat. Next of kin have been notified that they are missing, Public Affairs Officer Mike Salerno said.

The flight from Juneau to Yakutat is 275 miles, and the area where the plane was last heard from is about 100 miles northwest of Juneau.

The single propeller Bonanza took off at 1:44 p.m. Saturday from Juneau. A friend of one of those aboard said the plane “stopped producing the track” they were following on flight radar at 5:21 p.m. when it was in the Mount Crillon area, about 50 miles northwest of Gustavus, Salerno said.

The Coast Guard soon after sent out an urgent marine broadcast, and dispatched the Cutter Reef Shark about a half hour later out of Juneau.

The Coast Guard is coordinating the search. It dispatched Air Station Sitka helicopters and a C-130 plane from Kodiak over the weekend. Others participating have been a C-130 from the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center in Anchorage, Civil Air Patrol and Alaska State Troopers, Salerno said.

A Civil Air Patrol plane was searching today, and the Coast Guard is coordinating with the Alaska Rescue Coordination center for “search assets later this afternoon,” Salerno said.