A charter plane carrying eight people crashed Thursday near one of the most remote outposts in the U.S. military's Alaska radar network, killing everyone aboard.
Pilots serving Alaska's remote radar sites fly into these conditions regularly because the alternative, for the technicians and support staff who keep the sites running, is no alternative at all.
Two Army Corps Engineers, Four Contractors, Two Pilots: Who Was Aboard The eight people killed were doing the unglamorous work that keeps a Cold War-era radar post functioning: two employees of the U.S.
Alaska's radar chain includes more than a dozen similarly remote sites, each of them reachable only by air, and each of them requiring the same kind of periodic charter flight that ended in Thursday's crash.
Then-NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt called the pattern "unacceptable" when the board pushed for a comprehensive safety overhaul, and the numbers have not meaningfully improved since.
A Security Aviation charter crashed near Cape Newenham's Cold War-era radar site after two missed approaches in fog, killing two Army Corps of Engineers employees, four contractors and two pilots.