The Pilots That Did The Unthinkable | Majestic Air Cargo Crash

This is the story of majestic air cargo N19454 . Alaska is truly one place thats still untouched to an extent, away from the big cities life is very different compared to what were used to. A huge part of what keeps alaska running are small air operators moving cargo and people around. Aviation here isnt a nice to have its a necessity. If the planes stop coming you might not get your meds your mail and your food. On the 23rd of january 2001 an old DC 3 was at the airstrip in Unalaska getting ready for the flight to anchorage. This Dc 3 had 55877 hours of flying under its belt and now on this day it was getting ready for the relatively quick hop over to anchorage. Quick side note, do you think that the DC 3 will be the first airline to hit 100 years in active service? Let me know. The weather on the day of the flight wasnt the best. Earlier in the day when they flew in from anchorage they tried to file a VFR or visual flight rules flight plan but they were denied and had to file an IFR or instrument flight rules because the weather was just so bad. Under vfr as the name suggests you can use visual cues outside the plane like roads and mountains to navigate. With IFR you need to use your instruments to navigate. When the weather is bad IFR is the way to go. Despite the bad weather the plane made it into unalaka at 19:15. Initially the plan was to park the plane there and turn in for the night but the night took a turn when the captain got a request to transport 2500 lbs of stuff from unalaska to anchorage. So in the dead of night at 2120 local time the plane was fueled with 464 gallons of fuel and then the pilots started the engines and then took off into the cold night sky. A man aboard a vessel in unalaska bay saw the plane take off from the airport. He saw the plane fly over the bay. He said that he saw the starboard engines produce sparks but the plane disappeared into the snowy night. The plane had not filed a flight plan and was instead performing a VFR flight. The problem with this is that you dont know when the plane is supposed to arrive at its destination. When you file an IFR flight plan you map out your exact route and that includes time stamps. The time in which you you would expect a DC 3 to make the trip from unalaska to anchorage came and went. But nothing Flight ___ never arrived. At around 2145 on the 23rd of january someone called in a fireball on a mountain that was right on the departure end of the runway that the plane had taken off from. The witness didnt know it yet but he or she had just seen flight ____ crash into the side of a mountain. This report wasnt actioned upon as no one had reported a plane missing. At 2300 hours on the 23rd of december an ELT signal was picked up from the direction of the mountain. An ELT or emergency locator transmitter is a device that transmits a distress signal when it detects a massive change in acceleration of the plane or if the pilot manually turns it on. Its designed to help rescuers to find downed plane but in this case that wasnt the case as the weather was too bad and the coast guard could not dispatch a helicopter. The clouds were too low and there was a very real risk of the helicopter slamming into the mountain itself. The next day at 1418 hours a Coast guard helicopter found the wreck of the plane on the side of a mountain. Their worst fears had been confirmed. Then at 14:48 hours the plane was officially reported overdue by a friend of the captain. The accident killed both the pilots on board. The weather was so bad that they werent able to get to the crash site for the next couple of days. Only reaching the crash site on the 26th of January. Unfortunately both pilot lost their life in the crash. The accident would be a hard one to solve as the plane was not equipped with a flight data recorder nor was the flight tracked on radar, nor were there any first hand witnesses to the crash. So the first avenue of investigation was the pilots. The captain of the flight was the director of operations for majestic air cargo and his history was interesting to say the least. Right off the bat they had time finding his files as there were no personal flight records listed for the captain. They had to figure out how much experience he had from a medical form he filed in oklahoma city, he had about 15000 hours of experience. Then they found out a lot more about the captain, not from his airline history but from his medical history. The captain was jailed december of 1985 for conspiracy and distribution of cocaine. He was jailed for 12 years and