Search for small plane that disappeared in fog and rain over Alaska called off

A friend who followed the plane online said the radar stopped at Mount Crillon in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, about 100 miles west of Juneau

The Coast Guard has called off the search for three missing people after the plane they were on failed to land in Yakutat at the scheduled time(Alaska’s news source)

The search has been called off for a small plane with three people on board that disappeared over southeastern Alaska last week.

“The decision to suspend is never an easy one,” Lt. Matt Naylor, the search mission coordinator, said in a social media post on X Monday night. Pilot Samuel Wright of Haines flew the 1948 single-propeller Beechcraft Bonanza to Juneau on Saturday and departed that afternoon after picking up passengers Hans Munich and Tanya Hutchins, Coast Guard spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Mike Salerno told the Anchorage Daily News.

The plane was headed to Yakutat, about 275 miles (442 kilometers) northwest of Juneau, where Munich and Hutchins live. But a friend who was tracking the plane online said the radar stopped at Mount Crillon in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, about 100 miles west of Juneau. That friend alerted authorities later Saturday that the plane was overdue.

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The Coast Guard has called off the search for three missing people after the plane they were on failed to land in Yakutat at the scheduled time(Alaska’s news source)

A search that began Saturday included a Coast Guard helicopter, an airplane and a boat crew. On Sunday, a Good Samaritan plane and a U.S. Air Force plane joined the search.

Weather conditions were generally poor, with fog, rain and gusty winds when the plane was last tracked, Salerno said. A plane attempting an emergency landing at an airport in northeastern Ohio ended in tragedy when it crashed, killing all three people on board, authorities said.