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In college I wrote a senior paper on the USS Indianapolis which became famously sunk and lost in WWII resulting in the largest recorded shark attack in history. I exchanged letters and phone calls with over 60 of the ship’s survivors (the 47 letters I received are on file with the Indianapolis Historical Society). There were many elements of the Indianapolis story that intrigued me, not the least of which was that it was relatively unknown at the time I was researching it. I couldn’t believe the US Navy lost a ship only to be found by sheer luck or that our history would so effectively lose such a compelling story. (Really – largest recorded shark attack in HISTORY. How do we forget that?) The survivors were, every single one, rather surprised that I would write about them for a college project. It turned out to be a turning point for me and revealed that more than anything, I love to research and write about what is lost.

My grandmother used to pray to St. Anthony when she (or anyone she knew) lost something. (The joke in our family was that she prayed to him so much she called him “Tony”; as they were on a first name basis.) I think a lot about lost houses and lost beaches; the lost places of my childhood. I can’t even drive past the house I grew up in without seeing myself running to my grandmother’s house around the corner through a vacant lot that is a 7-11 now. Everything I knew when I was 10 is changed so much it is as if it never existed at all.

The past few days I have been going over an article on missing aircraft in Alaska. It’s kind of weird, but even when pieces of an aircraft are found, it can still be listed as missing. A certain percentage of the aircraft must be recovered for it to be listed officially as an accident. So small pieces of debris are just evidence of something gone; but not proof that it ever existed at all.

There’s probably something poetic in there somewhere….I’m still not sure how to say it that way though. (I’ll be writing about these airplanes a lot more than just this article. There’s more to tell than fits in 1,000 words.)

In the past couple of years I have spent my time with newly found family photographs, uncovered unbelievable family stories (and the hits keeping coming in that front), made contact with someone with information on a long lost mountain climber and paged through the NTSB reports on aircraft gone missing from decades ago.

And I tried twice to drive past the house I grew up in. Chickened out both times. (And I’m not sorry about that.)

There is an unexpected pattern to my interests these days and I’m very mindful of that. Patterns should not be taken lightly; even when you aren’t consciously creating them.

[Post pic from 2012 – 75B was, once upon a time, one of the aircraft we flew at the Company.]

Incredibly frustrated.

I am so tired of being contacted by freelancers hired to write about Alaska aviation for major publications even though they are not pilots, know little (or anything at all) about aviation and have no knowledge of aviation in Alaska. I answer their questions, I’m very polite, I’m indeed quite helpful but I’m tired of it. I’m tired of being good enough to serve as an information source for people who know practically nothing on this topic but not good enough to be hired to write for these publications myself.

Sometimes, I wish this was not my topic of interest. Frankly, sometimes I wish I did not write anything at all. Once upon a time I was on track for a career in airport management which came with the expected host of local and office politics. But still…I went to work, I did my job and I went home and didn’t think about it until the next time I went to work. There is something appealing in that, in just not thinking about your job for hours at a time. With writing it’s always with you, even when you dream.

I’ve got to find a way to deal with this frustration and focus on my writing. There’s got to be a better way to approach what I want to do with my time (with my life) then what I’m doing now.

I have an article up at ADN about the history of fish spotting for commercial fishermen in Alaska. It has been, and continues to be to a certain extent, extremely dangerous. Here’s a bit:

In 1984, at the opening of herring season, there was a fatal crash over Togiak, a mid-air collision under a low overcast cloud layer that killed the occupants of both aircraft. According to the NTSB report, witnesses described the flight activity as “frantic,” “chaotic” and “insane.”

In 1991, a mid-air collision near Tatitlek resulted in the death of one of the pilots, while the other was able to land. At the time of the accident, witnesses told the NTSB there were about 50 aircraft circling Boulder Bay waiting for herring season to open.

In 1995 near Naknek a Piper Super Cub and Cessna 172 collided while fish-spotting at about 400 feet over the water and both pilots were killed.

In 1997 the surviving pilot from the Tatitlek accident was involved in another mid-air while flying a Cessna 185 on floats near Galena Bay, along with a spotter, while waiting for the opening of herring season. That plane collided with another pilot and spotter in a Bellanca, which then crashed in the bay, killing both aboard. No one was injured in the Cessna.

In each of these accidents and many others that occurred in the 1980s and ‘90s, the probable cause was determined to be inadequate visual lookout, diverted attention or failure to see and avoid.

[Post pic by Scott Dickerson – see several more fish spotting pics with my article.]

From my article on the survey of Southeast Alaska up at Alaska Dispatch News:

In 1926 Alaska's aviation industry had barely been born. Ben Eielson had flown and lost the first air mail contract in 1924. Russ Merrill and Roy Davis made the first flight over the Gulf of Alaska only one year before. And future famous pilots like Bob Reeve, Joe Crosson, Bob Ellis and Shel Simmons had yet to make their marks. But as reported in the 1929 publication "Aerial Photographic Surveys in Southeastern Alaska," using aircraft to survey the territory was a logical choice. Although topographic mapping of Alaska had been conducted by the Geological Survey for nearly 30 years, progress remained slow-going and extremely hazardous with some regions still stubbornly inaccessible. Photographing by aircraft presented endless possibilities; it just needed to be tested.

It's just amazing when you think of what they accomplished with such crude equipment and poor weather reporting information. I'm always so surprised when I come across stories like this--what pilots accomplished back never ceases to amaze me.

A couple of weeks ago Alaska Dispatch ran a piece I wrote about these guys who are on this crazy madcap all-kinds-of-wonderful mission to save a B25 Mitchell bomber from a sandbar north of Fairbanks where is has been sitting for 50 years. They have founded a museum just so they can make this airplane the centerpiece of it and not only do they want to rebuild the plane, they want to fly it again.

This is the stuff that dreams are made of, folks. I find it inspiring that they can even dream this big.

Anyway, they've formed a Kickstarter to get $20,000 and if you can show them so financial or at least help spread the word, that would be excellent. It's worth clicking through to check out the video and see the plane; really wicked cool stuff.

In other Kickstarter news, these guys have developed a card game around Moby Dick that has to be seen to be believed. The Awl interviewed the creators and it's neat to see a literary obsession turned into tabletop play this way. I hope they get their funding because I'd really love to check out the game. (And take a look at those gorgeous cards!!!)

And I have a new column up at Bookslut, which includes books where someone really is out to get you. They are more adventure than horror though (well, except for the mutant bugs one - ha!). All fun, all recommended, of course.

And I have a new article up at Alaska Dispatch on the bush pilots of Wrangell St. Elias National Park that touches a bit on the bush pilot narrative and its long history (and continued impact on Alaska aviation).

What I'm working on now - reviews for July and August, and articles on the impact of sequestration on the Alaska aviation environment and a a flight school in Bethel aimed at Alaskan Native youth. And then there's some epic spring cleaning going on over here, but I image the same thing is going on in your house, too!

Over past couple of weeks I've been working on this article about the Idiarod Air Force (IAF) for Alaska Dispatch. Just as it was about to go up on the site a privately owned aircraft that was not affiliated with the IAF went missing on Monday. I was up late that night working on that article with my editor and then Tuesday the wreckage was found - no survivors. So Tuesday I worked on an article about the previous dangerous aviation history in that area.

All of this necessitated reading a lot of old accident reports and weather reports and studying maps (I always want to study the maps - it helps me figure out what I'm writing about). None of it is anything new for me; the recent accident is very sad but I've been here before. They are always sad. While I've been doing this aviation stuff, I've been writing about mountain climbing (in 1910) and in both cases there has been a lot of wondering why men do the things they do. (I have not encountered many women in these particular questions lately, but I will ask the questions of women when they show up in my archival wanderings as well.)

Every accident happens for a very specific set of reasons. Weather might be a factor, or mechanical difficulties. The same can be said of mountain climbing (though the mechanical bits are not so dramatic). But while you can say a pilot continued into bad weather or a climber failed to turn around in the face of fading daylight (they hardly ever turn back when the summit is close), what you can't answer is why they were there in the first place. If they don't survive then you can't know what those thoughts were that propelled them to that certain place in that certain time. Just like all of us have our own reasons for marriage or school or jobs, so do pilots and mountain climbers.

The crash on Monday was about a dangerous pass and bad weather. The questions are why he chose that pass instead of the safer long way around and why he didn't turn back when it started getting bad. There are a lot of tried and true reasons that come to mind (arrogance, self-induced pressure, bush pilot syndrome, fear of failure, general obliviousness, etc.) but really, we will never know. A thousand things happened before he got in that plane to bring that pilot to that place and that crash. Even the people that know him best might not know all of his reasons. But every single time, every single crash report I read no matter how old, the question of why is what leaps to my mind.

I always want to know what I can never know. It should be frustrating but instead, it just makes me want to read and write more.