Plane Crash 9 Killed - Tour Out of Ketchikan

There has never been an in flight structural failure of any Dehavilland Beaver or Otter, that I am aware of. Most/many of the planes have been converted over, to a turbo prop engine, by Viking Air out of Vancouver, the STC holder for this modification. Dehavillands are built like tanks, and look it to me, LOL. This crash will go down as a "pilot error" as do most crashes in Alaska. The mountain they hit didn't move, just the airplane and the pilot was in charge of where it flew. In poor visibility, it is very easy to get disoriented as to your exact location when flying. I have just over 3,000 hours of Alaska flying time, most of it in the bush. In my 20+ years of flying in Alaska, I think I talked to an FAA employee about twice and both of those were when I was on trips to town, Fairbanks or Anchorage. The FAA is pulling out of many remote areas to work out of centers, in the urban areas. Very little actual supervision, by FAA employees, usually from a designated person, that works for the company, not the FAA.

While the tour deaths is a tragic happening, I try to keep things like this in prospective, by remembering that over 4,000 people died in auto accidents in Florida last year. Flight seeing is a great way to see parts of Alaska. Each flight starts new each take off, just because you have flown in an airplane for the last 20 days, your odds of being in a crash are no different than the other people on the plane taking their first flight of their lifetime. But before you get on any flight, look around at the weather, and remember only take offs are optional.