One pilot missing, another found deceased

MAT-SU — Searchers are looking for a missing pilot who was last seen Saturday heading from Soldotna to Wolf Lake and have found the wreckage of a plane that crashed en route from Wasilla to a mine east of McGrath.

Guy Hayes, spokesman for the state’s Department of Military and Veteran’s Affairs, writes that the Alaska Air National Guard has activated various Civil Air Patrol units in the Anchorage area and one in Seward to fly grid patterns looking for the green red and white Piper Super Cub.

According to KTUU, the pilot’s name is Brendan Mattingly and he was last seen Saturday morning at the Soldotna airport.

“The search has focused on three areas: the pilot’s last known point in Soldotna, the destination at Wolf Lake and the flight path in between the two points,” Hayes writes in the press release.

Weather has been hampering search efforts but as of 3:10 Tuesday they were still underway.

As for the second search: at around 1 a.m. Tuesday, rescuers that had just finished airlifting a man from Hilline Lake with a gunshot wound to his chest were sent at to search for a missing twin-engine C-1A cargo plane.

The plane had been flying supplies to Nixon Fork Mine east of McGrath from an airport in Wasilla.

The rescuers searched the flight path with nigh-vision goggles but didn’t have a flight plan and came up short.

At 8 a.m. the Air National Guard sent out a HC-130 airplane, which has more sensitive equipment and could hone in on signals from the cargo plane.

The plane was found near Skwentna. Rescuers went down to it and found the pilot inside, deceased. The scene was handed over to Alaska State Troopers and the National Transportation Safety Board.