Alaska News

Pilot in Knik Arm crash called Bethel troopers, not 911, troopers say

Alaska State Troopers said Thursday the pilot whose plane crashed in Knik Arm last week never dialed 911, and instead used a satellite phone to call troopers in the Southwest Alaska community of Bethel for help, leading to an eight-minute wait before the National Guard learned of the crash.

Pilot Seth Fairbanks, 29, of McGrath, initially used the satellite phone to dial the number for the troopers post in Bethel at 11:54 p.m. Aug. 6, and his after-hours call was sent automatically to a dispatch center in the Interior city of Fairbanks.

Seth Fairbanks told a dispatcher he was standing on top of his crashed plane and needed to be picked up immediately. After 69 seconds, the call dropped off, troopers said in a written statement Thursday, and dispatchers couldn't call back because a visual display "only indicated the call was being routed from the Alaska State Trooper Bethel Post."

Fairbanks and a passenger, Anthony Hooper, 23, are both still missing and presumed dead.

The chain of events surrounding the pilot's emergency call last week was initially unclear, with one Anchorage technology expert saying the routing through Bethel had been a "failure."

But that was based on initial media reports that a 911 call had been routed to Bethel, hundreds of miles from the crash site, which turned out to be inaccurate.

After taking the pilot's call, the troopers dispatch center in Fairbanks called dispatchers in Wasilla who were closer to the crash site and exchanged information. The Wasilla dispatchers listened to the original emergency call.

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The Wasilla dispatchers ultimately called the Alaska National Guard's Rescue Coordination Center at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson at 12:02 a.m. Aug. 7, troopers said Thursday. (A guard spokeswoman has said the RCC got the call at 12:03 a.m., and a troopers spokeswoman didn't immediately respond to a request for clarification Thursday.)

The guard rerouted a pair of C-17 planes on a training mission, and crew members searched with night-vision goggles. They found the crashed plane at 5:46 a.m., with neither Fairbanks nor Hooper nearby.

Lisa Demer contributed reporting from Bethel.

Nathaniel Herz

Anchorage-based independent journalist Nathaniel Herz has been a reporter in Alaska for nearly a decade, with stints at the Anchorage Daily News and Alaska Public Media. Read his newsletter, Northern Journal, at natherz.substack.com

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