Airplane crash in Canada claims Valley resident

October 25, 2005

MARY AMES\Frontiersman reporter

MAT-SU- A longtime Valley resident died while flying his plane to Seattle last week.

George Kalmbach, 76, who homesteaded the Kalmbach Lake area, was taking his Cessna 185 to the Seattle area for the winter.

According to Kalmbach's widow, Maria Victoria, he was planning to leave it there for the winter, sharing it with their son John Bryce, who is a licensed pilot attending the University of Washington.

&#8220He loved airplanes,” she said. &#8220And he loved sailing. He sailed all over the world. But most of all he loved his family. That was the most important to him. He was 76, but that was only on the calendar. He never stopped dreaming of what he would do next.”

Kalmbach's plane took off from a private airstrip in the Kalmbach Lake area on Oct. 15, according to Kim Robinson, his daughter in Palmer. He made it to Fort St. John, British Columbia, she said.

He didn't call in from there, but the family knows from his flight plan that he landed safely, gassed up and took off again.

His next scheduled stop was in Chilliwick, British Columbia, and he was due there Sunday evening.

&#8220He was overdue, and we reported him missing,” Robinson said. &#8220Then we thought, well, maybe he just kept going to the border. So we called customs to see if he made it there, but he didn't.”

Robinson said that, within an hour, Canada Flight Service turned the matter over to Canada Search and Rescue.

&#8220They were on it and really impressive,” she said. &#8220They traced gas records. They told us to call the cell phone company to see if he had a GPS chip.”

Search and rescue got people out, but the weather was bad, Robinson said, and so was the weather when he took off from Fort St. John. The searchers also talked to people who had flown with him to understand how he might plan a flight, listened to his radio transmissions and looked at radar pans.

&#8220He was advised to not leave,” she said. &#8220But both my brothers-in-law are pilots and they say flight service is conservative like that.”

Each day the family had a little less hope that the white airplane would be found in the snowy mountains. The path Kalmbach flew was not along the road, but across the northern portion of the Rocky Mountain chain.

Then the searchers saw a blip on an old radar pan and focused their search on that area.

&#8220It went into the side of a mountain,” Robinson said. &#8220The plane was on the south side of the mountain and he was headed south. We can only speculate on whether he was disoriented or turning back. It's nice they found him, I can't imagine people who never have their loved ones found. This was quick, and he was doing what he loved.”

Kalmbach leaves behind three other daughters, Karen Holt in Talkeetna, Barb Smith in Wasilla and Kathi Vander Gugten in Switzerland. His son Kyle, 16, goes to school in Phoenix.

The wreckage is at 6,600 feet on an 8,000 foot mountain, and Robinson and Maria Victoria both say the situation makes it impossible to retrieve Kalmbach's body for the memorial service on Saturday, which will be at 1 p.m. at Sacred Heart Catholic Church on Bogard Road.

Contact Mary Ames at

352-2284 or mary.ames@

frontiersman.com.