10. The Island

mountains with snow. It's completely sunny, very few clouds, and they're just these like dramatic cliffs rising up from the water. From my heart, media, this is Missing in Alaska, the story of two congressmen who vanished in nineteen two and my quest to figure out what happened to them. I'm your host, John Wallzac. Our trip to Henchin Brook Island almost didn't happen. We just got lucky sun, blue sky, clear water, but only for about forty eight hours. We

had a narrow window between storms and we seized it. Unfortunately, our boat could only accommodate four people, two captains and two members of our team. So on October nineteen, I flew with Paul Decan, our supervising producer, from Anchorage to Cordova, a small fishing town on Prince William Sound. I've been to something like forty five out of fifty states, so I don't say this lightly. Cordova is one of the

most beautiful towns in America. It's right on the water, ringed by snow capped mountains, reachable only by air or sea. It's most valuable commodity, Copper River salmon can fetch more than seventy dollars per pound. Anyway, when we landed, all I had was the name of our captain, Andy and his phone number. We had been so busy that the details of the search the logistics fell to Sam T. Garden, our research assistant in Atlanta. In the tiny terminal in Cordova,

I called Andy across the room. A skinny man with a gray beard answered. We walked over, said high, then went outside and hopped in his truck. Andy and his wife see One run a company called Alaska Marine Response. They specialized in salvaging wreck ships and cleaning up oil spills. Andy went to Cornell, where he studied natural resources with the concentration and fisheries. He moved to Alaska about thirty

years ago. On the way to the Marino where he docks his boats, and he asked for more details on why we wanted to go to Henshin Brook. He knew the basics that we were looking for a missing plane, but at my request, Sam hadn't told him much. We wanted to keep everything tight lipped. But and he is a pretty smart guy, and he figured out quickly which plane the baggage Bog's plane around nineteen eighty. I said, as we sped into town, a man named Bob Martinson.

Andy stopped me. Bob, I know Bob Amazingly coincidentally, Yes, Andy, our captain knows Bob, the tipster who found the cess in the tail. And like everyone else with whom I spoke, he said, Bob's a good guy, a fisherman who spent decades in Cordova on and off, a photographer whose images hanging in a local restaurant. When we got to the marina and he took us to our boat, the Arctic Skimmer, I went downstairs for a minute, then above me the radio crackled with what sounded like a may day call.

I ran back up, looked out a window and saw Paul, our producer, sprinting down the doctor Andy's truck to grab our recording equipment. It seemed that our trip would start with a rescue saw one needed help. A few minutes later, though Clarity, a boat was disabled and needed a toe, but nothing dramatic. Andy spoke with the coastguard, then dropped us off at his house, where we had the second

floor overlooking the water to ourselves. The plan was to head out the next day, so Paul and I, with time to kill, went exploring down a hill onto a breaker jutting into the water. As the sun set, everything was still and silent but for the sound of sea

otters splashing about and a few birds. We had dinner at the Reluctant Fisherman, where Bob Martinson's photos hang, some fitful sleep, Then the next morning we got up early, boarded our boat and met our other captain, Mark, who went to grad school at the University of Washington, where he studied Russian and Eastern languages before moving to Alaska.

As we prepared to leave Arkin, Andy told us that the town was a buzz a thirty three year old hunter named Neil Durgo had vanished in the mountains right before we arrived. We're kind of surmising that he's hurt because he would have easionly meet it back on his own. So if he's heard up high, then he's been dealing with snow and super cold nights. He had, you know, he had a space bag in a tent, maybe some extra clothing or something. The search party is it being

out of Cordova. We talked about Bob Martinson and assess in the tail he found. I know that the odds are like one in twenty million that we're gonna find this thing. But um, but Bob seems like a good guy and it's Bob Martin said, that's what he's talking about, the guy he's talking to. The Bobby's yeah, Mark knows it. I mean, you guys, we all know each other. Big dog, blond guy. I think he's a great grandfather or something

already better. Oh yeah, so so that's I mean, that's why I took what he said seriously, because he seemed you know, I've talked other people too, and study he's a reliable guy, because you know, doing something like this get a lot of crazy people that come out of the woodwork. But UM, I thought this was interesting because he was he's reliable. Where he found it matches up with the roughly with the flight route of the missing plane.

UM and the pilot Don Johns, didn't make radio contact at Johnstone Point and he was supposed to UM and he did right before he entered Portage Pass. So most people that I've talked to think that the plane went down into sound somewhere between um Cortobage and Pension Brooke. UM. And then you know, we were talking to Andy, and I talked to another guy in Anchorage the other day. There's this little strip of land UM near is a New Check Andy? Yeah. That the airstrip, the spot you

land a plane if you're going to New Check. Yeah. And that little stripple land Can you tell me about that? It's just that it's it's just just a little strip of gravel that connects you know, a more substantial what would be an island if that was gone, UM where the town of New Check wasn't. That stripple land is um flat level, it's humped, but a nice uh smooth surface for a plane to land up. Andy pulled out a map and pinpointed the spot where Bob found the

tail in poor dutches. Around the corner, there's a long, narrow strip of land used by bush pilots then and now as a rough airstrip. Typically you would only want to land single engine small planes on it. But in an emergency, it's possible that Don John's the pilot, could have tried to land here near what used to be the native village of New Check. Or he could have attempted a rough water landing adjacent to this strip and tried to swim to shore. Remember Don made several attempts

to swim twenty three miles across the English Channel. He was fit and he was used to swimming in choppy water. And then I was I've talked to some pilots and who looked at the weather that day, and they said that the I think the wind was coming out of the southeast, and so he would have wanted if he was trying to do some kind of crash landing, he would have wanted to fly into the wind um. And the way that this little striple land is oriented is

is facing southeast. If you were coming from Cortage Witterer. Um. So, yeah, So talking to Bob, like I said, it's been forty almost forty years he found this. Um, he was studied with his dad and uh, another man and or they're both dead. Um, but he's he said, I went back and reread this this morning. He said that the troopers in Cordova expressed the interest that it was related to the baggage plane. And you know, it's been forty years.

But one of the things that we've talked about is whether or not he brought the tail piece in And he doesn't really remember. He knows he gave the numbers whatever, he might have written them down. Um. And when people are out fishing, what are the boats that come bring them supplies called it tenders? Tenders. Yeah, he told me they might have sent it back on a tender or that he doesn't really remember. Um. But he told me that there were at least four characters and there were

six on the missing plane. And so the question is if there were four characters out of six on it, like you know, like you said, be a match too to like. So, I think this is the best lead as to the plane's location that I've ever heard, and it's probably the best lead in fifty years. We also discussed how Bob found the tail in the lead of his net. Sam and it liked to run along the beach.

They don't always, but they like doing it. So the idea is to cut them off with the net the lead, you know, so that they'll go into the deeper part of the net, and and then you try to keep them in there, and then you curse, and then you recover your net and haul them at the very end. But yeah, the lead is normally the it is the shallow end of the net. What what would that indicate? Maybe that it was just the net was being Well,

that's kind of a grabby thing. I mean, it drags up all kinds of stuff, you know, sometimes rocks, It hangs up un rocks a lot. Help Uh, you know, it's kind of grabby easily. You know, you could grab it something down there that's point jagged whatever. I mean. Definitely, a a tail end of a plane is quite possibly. Don't I'm not surprised, you know. Yeah, what's interesting, I think I said this earlier. What's interesting is he found something.

So it's it's like, even if it wasn't this particular plane, I wonder which one it was. Well, this is a kind of a uh pinpoints it kind of you know, we know where he found it. It's a not a big area. It's we know it's yes, and uh, it's indicating it's on the shallow you know, near the beach, the shallower area. So that's a kind of narrows it down quite a bit. I mean. And when I ask you, guys, so we obviously I know this is not the ideal time to do this, so we're very lucky we have

beautiful weather today. Um, I imagine the ideal time would be spring and summer. Sometimes a better summers in general is better weather, but there's no guarantee ever, Um, you're feeling June you have the longest days, so you can make better use of weather windows and generally nicer weather. I mean, so if you were to pick one spot in the year, one month of the year, that would be ideal for doing stuff on the water. June is about as good as it gets, but it doesn't mean

it can't blow data any given week. You know, this is a nice window. Actually, do you see the way this wind is coming. Once we go around that island will be in the league so we'll we'll be pretty sheltered in there, and then this helps knock down the swell that's out because otherwise you get wrap around swell in there, and that makes it tough getting stuff on and off the boat. If we're you know, doing that

getting okay, how shallow can this boat get it? I mean, what is what would be like the minimum depth touch? We can touch? Really, it's an ice class all. It's built really thick. So it's made to beach so we can drive up, you know, a nice beach rock. You know, it's a nice, nice slope beach. We can drive up to it. So if you found the tail of assessma here, if if it didn't originate, if the plane hadn't crashed right in this area, do you have any idea where

it would have been brought in from? Oh? If if that would be that would be tough. You know. The thing is that if I think of a tail of a if a plane brex, Let's say there's some possibility there there there could have been a bomb planet on the plane right where that it could have broke the plane of um. Most of the time when you load a plane, you load all the light things in the stern in the tail and including dry bags with your

survival gear and stuff like that. So if the tail could have been ouyant for a long time and floated, so the plane could have crashed somewhere else and currents could have brought it in there. Or but a southeast wind like a wouldn't have that would have taken it elsewhere usually but um, but it might have gone out and then the weather changed and then point in. Um. But it's that's not a classic collection spot, like the

currents don't. Like most of the stuff that happens out of the Gulf ends up on like Naked Island or over here, like they don't. It doesn't go in there. That's not um. It's like what it seemed to indicate to you then that whatever plane this was probably went down in that area, that it's a good bed, that it's the engines and the rest of it are too far away. But I could have drifted, you know. If there was a part of a plane that could drift, it would be the tail. A few hours later, we're

on a boat. We're on the We're on a fifty ft boat and Prince William Sound the Arctic Skimmer and We are right next to Hinchinbrook Island. The cliffs are rising above. It's a beautiful sunny day and we're just about to turn into fourt edges and then there we were the exact spot, so that rock formation just right off there. The around nineteen man and two other men found assessment tail, so somewhere out here they were saneing fishing.

As we idled, we took stock of our equipment. Unfortunately, we did not have two very important tools side scan sonar and a magnetometer, which would have helped a lot. We couldn't get them in time. But we did have two r o v s, or remotely operated vehicles, small tethered submersibles with cameras. If you've seen Titanic, you know what they look like. They're used at the beginning of

the movie to explore wreckage. One of ours belonged to Andy, the other to the Prince William Sound Science Center, which kindly lent it to us. Tell us about this r OV in particular, like what its capabilities or how de trekker. Um, it's a it's a high resolution camera. It's the highest resolution camera we have. Um, we're rigging it right now.

Kind of like a controlled drop camera, so we can thrust and tip, but we're going to drag it with the boat just so we can cover more area than we could if we were stopped swimming around with it. We also had diving equipment and a crane just in case we found something interesting, Say the plane the r o V. So it's in the water. It's in the water. Um are we searching that way? Starts pointing the reel. But I didn't make a difference. I can to sure.

Let's let's just let's have it go over at this side of the poem means the ploy said this one something like that at forty dollars. So this at that point right there, that's probably what we're looking at. And so around there this is that this rounded part and then that jagged rock area that is that's probably this And that's where he said he found the piece to be right over there around those rocks. Yeah, yep, right there, right where the r o V is now. On a screen,

we watched as the r o V descended. We just had a jellyfish some one by the camera. Seymore jellyfish over the years, don't they proliferate when there's always been a lot of gels, but maybe a few more. A few years ago we had a really bad jellyfish season affected sang a couple of boats. They were so so thick about a couple of boats. They the sayners would catch so many jellies that they'd roll over like they couldn't.

Their nets would pack up. They're trying to catch fish, and the gels block the the opening of the web, and then we just roll them right over, so the jelly can literally take a boat down. Are you good enough of them? So you can go down a little more? Mark, I can't yet see the bottom. Okay, I can see the bottom. Stop. Yeah, so let's we're seeing the bottom, which is a means visibility pretty good. Hasn't hasn't rained

in a few days, which would money everything? Oh yeahs I don't think there's any well as all as cricks, but I don't think there's anything really big so unusual this time of the year to be able to see to the bottom, you know, the actually winner that is a higher better visibility because plankton is can be your biggest problem, and of course the cooler it is less likely they're blooming in the summer. But plankton is can

really makes things soupy, you know. As Mark steered the r o V aiming its camera side to side, we stared at the green tinted screen, water, rocks, plants, fish. To minimize glare, we covered the screen with a black sheet and crawled underneath. Much better. We were just doing it tests above water. See this is uh there? Now I'll come back and show you this. You want to that's a sea outer hole. They come down dig and get clams and muscles and stuff. What do you need? Well,

I'm just kind of curious. Should I come back? Um, maybe just turn off the down thruster and let's just see where it is. Are you using the propulsion or is the boat pulling it? The boats pulling it? I'm using its propulsion to aim it. Is it pretty simple to use or is it kind of trucky? Oh? It's it's it's kind of like a video game. You kind of get you know, once you figure out which fingers doing what, you know, you get better at over time. But since my excuse why fourteen year old can use

it better than I could? Is it something that we could use for a minute or is it? Yea, I took control of the r o V. It is zippy. It's really surprising. You kind of sucking in to be slower, so you use the propulsion and obviously to aim it. But does does it kind of stabilize on its own if you just let go? Should be seen in the bottom conservac You said, where the claw? Where the claw here? Okay? Yes, this r o V also had a remote controlled claw. How would I telt to see the claw? More so

this great same thing on the other side. I'm cool, you're looking down. H It's not super the clause and super quick, but it's quick enough. I don't know, it's not quick enough, not for fish so much. Let me stop for a minute and meditate on how bizarre all of this was, how surreal. Here I was off an island in Alaska, navigating an r o V as we searched underwater for a missing plane that carried to U. S. Congressmen.

To be honest, I didn't quite think the answer to can we charter a boat and go search for the plane would be yes, this is a podcast, But the answer was yes, so yeah. Anyway, for hours we used the r o V s to search for wreckage. A

lot of eel grass, but no plane. Later, a change of plans, we hopped into a zodiac craft, a small inflatable boat with a motor, and started zooming around, taking advantage of the ultra clear water to conduct a visual search looking to the floor below, because amazingly, yes, it was clear enough to see to the bottom, at least in shallow water. We also landed briefly on Hension Brook itself, so I wonder where they're um on the map there was some like inland water feature. I wonder where that is?

Is that an otter's So we're standing on the shore of Henson Brook Island. We're kind of on the edge of the trees, and the sun is going down and we just rode up in a zodiac boat off the bigger boat. And so now we're gonna wander into the woods and hopefully not get eaten by bears or this is gonna kind of be Blair witchy when you find this this audio. We didn't have long on the island, but we planned to return back in the zodiac, escape

from Pension Brook and back to the Arctic skimmer. Exhausted, we anchored for the night as the sun sank in the distance. We spotted something walking on the beach. How how far are we from shore? A couple hundred yards, you know, I don't maybe more from him, maybe undry yards from him. Him was a large brown bay air. Where do you go? Uh? Do you go behind a kind of rock or something? Now, so we've all the four of us have been tracking the bear with binoculars.

I don't think he went into the bushes. He's just behind. So is this your first bear ever? Yeah? Well yeah, sounding like in a zoovia zoos don't count. Yes, this is this is my third. I saw one in North Carolina, on one in Washington State and the North Cascades and the street the third, but the first brown bear. It's an unusually colored one. Yeah, I got something. I was taking pictures through the binoculars. Yeah, so I was using

what was unusual about the color. It had a blonde collar and then blonde ears and a lot darker brown coat. Oh wow, here you go. Yeah that was true the binoculars. Yeah. Yeah, so I was doing that kind up. Yeah. So, I mean it's a much better closer picture. Wow, I've never tried it. It's it's hard. You have to stay super stable. So I have to find it with my eyes and then hold my phone up, you know, in the perfect spot, and then try to quickly get some pictures. But I

got video of it too. After a few minutes, the bear cross between two rock formations and disappeared. So the bears gone. Now for a minute, I want you to close your eyes. You're on a boat, vast body of water. Twilight. You see distant mountains backlit by a fading glow, cold wind. Calm. You're a tiny dot in a dark wild We are were anchored for the night in Poor Duchess, not far from where we were looking for the Thesessina tail with r o VS. And we're a few hundred feet off

the beach. We just saw a brown bear walking on it for a while and we were all just tracking it with binoculars. And Mark's making dinner right now, stir fry downstairs, and we're all talking about the best way to eat moose and uh oh, what do you see something moving on the beach there? It's black? You sure the binoculars? Wait, okay, I lost it? Now what's it in the grass around the beach to us? So it's like it's like it's I can't see it now putting

that little rocky that lighter rock color stuff. Anyway. Sorry, no, it's all good. And uh so we're in this. We're in Poor Duchess which is sheltered, and we're surrounded by all these rocky hills and yeah, I mean today we we went from Cordova on too Prince William Sound and all the way to Engine Brooke and into Poor Duchess and we used two r o vs to look for the plane. And um, then we we hopped in the zodiac and the water was so clear amazingly and that

we just kind of did a visual search near the shoreline. Um, we didn't see anything, but we also landed on the beach and went into into the woods. But um, it's really serene and peaceful. There are two other boats in Poor Duchess right now other than us, but we're kind of far away from them. So we're just anchored down for the night with the sun going down, not too much light left, and he's I don't know what he

needs to do it maybe talking about hope for tomorrow. Um, so tomorrow we're going to use the r o vs and areas that we didn't search to day and we're also hopefully gonna go out on the zodiac and see if the water is still super clear, if we can cover more ground when the light is better, when the sun is right above us. So we did it kind of late in the day today and we we're close

to shore. But um, but yeah, So, I mean, we found the exact spot that was pinpointed to us where the cess and the tail was pulled up, and we've been just using the RV sook around that area. Um, we're concentrated in a very specific spot in poort Edges. I mean, I'm excited for dinner. It's getting colder. It was actually really nice today. It was it was sunny and it was warm at points an hour on the front of the boat looking at the beach where the bear was a few minutes ago. And it's freezing cold

and we're hungry. That night after dinner below deck as we fell asleep, this is what we heard. H h h h h m hm m hm hm hm m. So today's day two of our search and another beautiful day's sunny. We just had breakfast and uh Andy has binoculars and it's piloting the boat. Mark is on the

roof of the boat. We heard his voice and we didn't know where he was, but he's on the roof and we're gonna take advantage of the sunlight and the low tide and the clear water to go to the area where the tail was pulled up and see if we can see anything visually and then also used the r o v S again um to cover ground that we didn't cover yesterday. So for a while that's what we did R o v S a visual search. But other than eel, grass and fish again, nothing well, we

did spot something. Yeah, So we're we're right off the coast of henteron Brook Island and we're we see some rusted out wreckage on the beach. We're not really sure what it is. It looks maybe like it's part of a boat. Andy suggested we head to shore. So John at looking at that steel debris on the beach. It's and thinking of the number of storms that have happened

in the last fifty years and pushed up up. Being that the plane was aluminum and it could have had there's a good chance that looking at the beach line along this point, if there was something out here, it could have got pushed up there. We're seeing a lot of steel things that got pushed up there. It's a lot heavier in debtsort than aluminum. So it's it's interesting. I mean, it's interesting to think. I mean, at least part of it could have watched up onto the shore.

Maybe not the engines. Why I keep watching it, but there's an engine. I keep watching the line with the binoculars, and I keep you know, every Yeah, there's another piece of metal in there, and I can see where just straight in from us under the sea. It's not a big piece. But we have we have these uh Andy has these image stabilized expensive binoculars which are really nice because we can see pretty far. And you know, usually the binoculars are shaking, but you press this button and

it stabilizes it. So's it's helpful. Mark and Andy Prepp the zodiac. We have a radio. We have air horn and flares. Che tim if you can see a bear coming towards us. We all getting in the boat. Yeah, we climbed in and took off. Yeah. Clear when you get close. So the wreckage, the metal that we saw is further down shore. You yea, when you do anything. We're trying to get a little bit of shelter from this shop. You probably fine, did you guys get out? Yeah?

And you can just specting that guy. You got some rocks here, you're gonna be able to pop and go if you want to go flos if your feet your let me go. Ye rocks the lines. So did you get out? M I'm sure, so's Andy? You like you can leave him on too. I think it's gonna lead mine on for now. Yeah. They're worm Yeah, it's kind of just while I'm moving it on the wipe ust. We combed our way down the beach for a minute. I disappeared into the woods. John, Yeah, where are you?

I'm on the bear drow okay, okay. As we picked up debris, steel would bong. We looked closely for pieces of aluminum. The missing plane was made mostly of aluminum ore. Coming up on more steel again, not a not a fifty five young drum. You've heard of? An old boat? Paul and I kept showing Andy anything that seemed remotely interesting. So you're want to just pick up this piece of hose here off the beach which we're looking at. It's got some steel reinforcing and a braided core. Doesn't look

typically marine. It definitely looks like an expensive construction, kind of shielded like it could be possibly aircraft. We don't see any numbers or what makes you say that it's not marine. How can you just just because of the um you have a you have a lot of room and marine compared to aircraft. So you would be able to instead of buying a hose that would be this expensive to construct, you would run it away from you know, that had to get close to heat or some reason.

They had that shielded hose. I think it's worth saving. Sure. Did you see about the MH three seventy guy, the guy who would go around and uh like the Maldives and he went hunting for pieces of the plane and he actually found a few. There's the article in the Atlantic about it recently. So this is copper wire. It's all rolled up like it was a part of storage. It was amazing what Andy could tell from even the smallest piece of debris by the type of wood or

nail or metal, or how something was constructed. He could say this is from a boat, or this is pre nineteen and then here's our shipwreck, and it must be past two o'clock huh. I think it is because the tide looks like it's going down. Ye Oh, it was old seeing this boat up close. You're telling me anymore about it? No, it's interesting because it looks like careful.

Like I said, the nails could be sticking up. So we're seeing these deck planks and a little bit of the blue right back there on different to a well. And you can see here the blue and in the square nails and that deck plank. I'd picked up back there and thought this this where is this a tank? Guess this is a tank? And where's the rest of the whole? Like is this and is that fish tote part of it? I see there's a plastic coat and classic where nails. Would they tell you that it's older?

They do? They do, except for pretty much Johnny Wooden construction is older. After combing through the wreckage for a bit, we moved on and kept looking for clues. Yeah, we found us another piece of illuminum. You know what, it's stainless steel in stayle steel. I guess is it's a sink, the kitchen sink. You found a sink. It's stainless I thought it? Do you guys? See John? Yeah? Right, are I'm pointing there's something white. I think it's a rock,

but I can't really point. Okay, it's like rounded, I think, is it a rock, I'm going he's going no, it's I think he's classic. Okay. In addition to a literal kitchen sink, we found a checker piece, a child's flip flop, a car bumper, dead jellyfish, the carcass of an eagle, and a ton of garbage. And I mean a ton of garbage. We've essentially turned the earth into a rotating landfill, trash and plastic everywhere, even here on this otherwise pristine island.

The sheer amount of trash made our job hard, so much crap to sift through, but sit through it we did. You know what kind of reminds me of Phoebe Cooper, because that one kid digging on a beach found some of the money. And it's just like that kid happened to be digging at the right spot at the right time and found a clue. And so you know, we're sitting here like coming through shift wreckage and and garbage,

and you know one piece could be an answer. Then for the first time, a piece of aluminum that wasn't a can castings, but that's definitely a casting luminum casting rubber hose. What is that's in the shape of it. It sort of looks like a bell housing it Scott. This would have been the the finished edge probably why it was quated. It would probably against something steel and then it would come around and I had another machine

off the back of the engine. It would just been like a cover or that um they flywheel would have sat in. We kept it and moved one found a small strip of metal back there O that there stainless steel.

It looks like it was part of a clamp. But what would be my guess, probably from a boat probably, I mean standless clamps are used um to hold hoses, boats, airplanes, all kinds of mechanical I mean, to really find something that we could identify as part of the plane, what would it take, I mean other than the tail number or serio like that cowing you know that would turned out to be Honda. They have a uh Cessna will

have a definite um right on the front. That's a Usually it's a plastic piece that's I mean that would be like a smoking gun. UM. Any any of the chunks of a plane aluminum like that are riveted and have a lot of different things. So if we can found a chunk of wing, we would know that it was airplane related, and then we could look back and see by people that really know airplanes better, what type of airplane was this um, and then maybe get closer to the idea of could it be the one that's

a beautiful old piece of wood? There? Searching in a creek nearby, I found a lead patch, probably from a boat that sank. Again, if people will say, would would chunk of an airplane wash ashore made of aluminum? This is made of lead, It washed ashore, or you found it up the creek from the high tide, so um, Definitely things get pushed up. I think this was a good idea. I mean, you know, given the situation, we probably have a better chance of finding I think the

playing on the shore. I think so. And we're able to search so thoroughly, you know, looking at the rocks where the eel grass that was one thing. The the r o vs quickly became tangled in the ear eel glass gel grass. The the thrusters um and see it's good we have you alonggo because you can identify off this. I won't really, you know, barring something blatantly obvious like

a waning in one. Yeah, I still put these on um places where we you know, we look at Okay, that doesn't necessarily need to be repaired, but we'd like to protect it. So far, so far, coming to beach, we've only found one piece of non can aluminum. Yea, that pizza that we found back there, right that, Yeah, that was a cast piece of a Liminum too. We're fairly starting that would not be from an airplane. Um, the the engine parts could be cast. There could be

parts that are bolted to the engine that are cast. Um, it wasn't it wasn't necessarily a shape that would preclude it from being from an airplane. Might as well take it back with us. We can take it back somebody that might that's an expert. No more about. But um, we're used in a lot of marine engines as well. Aluminum cast like that. So the the plane. If the plane is sitting somewhere under the water here, or if it's broken into pieces, you think it's still be whatever's

left of it was still being pretty good shape. Liminium doest pretty well in this climate underwater. Um, so it could be covered with marine growth. But yeah, I think it it could be. H what's it been over fifty years? Yeah, it could be. I mean, especially if it's for whatever reason it's entombed in mud. I mean, it might be preserved pretty well. We're able to find it. I just kept having this image with the R O V yesterday of the tail and seeing that, seeing the number pop up.

But and we don't know if it We're not sure if the tail was pulled up and delivered to the tender to take the court over, or just the numbers were transferred. Right. That was a little bit of a Bob could really remember that. And I wonder, Um, I mean the number might have been in more than one place. I mean that the main you know, would have been in one prominent place. But we probably battling right now, boy,

losing daylight. We doubled back, so we're about to get on the part of the beach directly opposite from where Bob found the tail. M h m hm. Sure, looking for like a message carbon the cliff Bogs is here. As the tide rose, we reached the massive rock formation jutting into the water blocking us uh but yeah, is there a way around that side? Uh? Well, I could hop up on here, but I just don't know how steepid is on the other side. It's manage the ball. You might want to go down to Paul, Say, what

where are you at? I'm on the other side now I'm behind you. Oh okay, yeah you, I mean you you can go too that. You have to get on your knees and crawls. Do you want me to grab Anya you might want? Yeah? Can you just hold that? So Paul is crawling almost on his stomach under a big rock formation and he's through. You know, I know it's unlikely, but when you do something like that, I just can't help but imagine this thing collapsing. Well, I was waiting until I was waiting until you got out.

So now how do we go? It looks like you did get shimmy down the side. Okay, and like that, our time on the island ran out. Your Mark, you're still on there? Uh in the galley is waiting? Well? You in my world famous spaghetti dinner. All right, Well we walked up an appetite, were turned around, and we're headed your way. So we'll see in a little bit. Mark picked us up in the zodiac. You like the assorted oh stuff that I'm bringing back. We found a lot of stuff, but this is the stuff we weren't

quite sure about. Oh wow, wow, man, it's so pretty getting water over the side. Change my socks when I got back or suck only got one water walk flood. Yeah, we found a lot from that one shipwreck whatever. It was pretty cool. Old boat. I don't know, wouldn't beams and planks, kind of square nails, definitely a little construction. Yeah,

scare nails anymore. Climbing up a ladder onto the Arctic skimmer, I set down the debris I kept, including the piece of cast aluminum, and I changed my sock for dinner mark spaghetti. Then it was time to leave. Andy navigated us out of Poor Duchess, but before he got too

far I asked him to stop for a minute. So we're just off the coast of Pension Brook, but specifically New Check and there's a really narrow strip of land and we've talked to some pilots who say that this is a good place to land a plane and they use it actually now to land plane small planes. Um, it's like a very long narrow strip of lands rocky um sandy um, you know, and it's surrounded, it's rained by the east. These mountains these really tall maybe get

more than like a thousand feet hide really high. Um. But so if we run on the hypothesis that the tailpiece that was found in Port Duchess belongs to the plane we're looking for, trying to figure out, well, you have this perfect landing strip, why would you have gone around the corner into and ended up in Port Chess. I mean maybe a few explanations. The plane could have gone down around here and the tailpiece got dragged around

the corner. Um. Maybe the visibility was really bad and don was the pilot was trying to turn around to come back and land in this spot. UM. I mean, there are different explanations. But it's really weird to see this in person. I've seen this on Google Maps so many times that you know, to be here with these

thousand foot tall mountains and this rugged, beautiful water. Um. But yeah, so we're about to head back to Cordova and we're leaving Pinsinbrook behind, and if we come back here with more equipment, we would love to search this area off this um long landing strip. How do I feel? How do I feel? I mean, honestly, I feel good.

I feel. Why am I asking myself how I feel? I? Uh, I feel like this trip was worth it because I got a really good understanding of the geography of the area, um of this strip of land that I've seen on a map but I've never seen in person, of how tall the mountains are, of what port edges looks like.

And when we went to the spot that um Bob told us he found the cess in the tail, we got a much better idea of where he would have set his nets and where he could theoretically have pulled up the tailpiece, and you can kind of narrow it down to this very specific area. And uh Andy and Mark helped us with that. So if we were to come back here with a magnetometer with side scanning sonar, we have some really good specific points in areas that

we could search. And then for several hours as we zip back a break, no searching, no interviews, just time to think and try not to puke, because the return trip, for me at least, was rough. I don't usually get sick on boats, but for whatever reason that day I did nausea aside. I stepped out of the cabin onto the deck multiple times, wearing a life vest, gripping rails, watching islands and mountains vanished behind us, bathed by a striking sunset, fiery reds and oranges giving away to cool

blues and paints. As darkness fell, we pulled into Cordova. Now there's something I need to tell you, something I haven't told you. The day before, while we were on the water, out of cell range, or so we thought, Andy's phone buzzed once. It was a text with bad news. That day at exactly one pm, about ninety minutes after we got to Poor Dutch's, an Army National Guard unit in the mountains near Cordova found the body of Neil Durko, the thirty three year old hunter who disappeared right before

we got to town. Durko fell down a steep shoot and died. Because such as Alaska, a place where so many fine meaning and others die young, where sometimes amateurs survive and experts don't, where hunters are found and congressmen aren't. Next time on missing in Alaska this week for your task something fun. Google Alaska shore Zone. Shore Zone is a free interactive mapping system that, among other things, allows you to explore seventy thousand miles of shoreline in Alaska.

Click on a spot and you can see photos, videos, etcetera. Go zoom around, visit tension Brooke, who knows maybe you'll spot something interesting. You can reach us by phone at one eight three three M I A tips that's one eight three three say four to eight four seven seven again one eight three three six four to eight four seven seven, or you can reach us via email at tips at iHeart media dot com. That's tips, T I P S at iHeart media dot com. Ben Bollen is

our executive producer. Paul Decan is our supervising producer, Chris Brown is our assistant producer, Seth Nicholas Johnson is our producer. Sam T. Garden is our research assistant. And I'm your host and executive producer, John Wallsack. You can find me on Twitter at at John wallzac j O n W A l c z A K. Special thanks to our captains Andy and Mark, and to Bob Martinson. A big thank you also to the Prince William Sound Science Center and specifically Scott Pega. Their website is p w S

sc dot org. If you can go donate there are a great nonprofit. Finally, when this wretched pandemic passes, please visit Cordova. You won't regret it. Trust me for now, though, support the fisherman. If you can afford it, try some Copper River salmon. People say it's the best salmon in the world. Missing in Alaska is a co production of I Heart Media and Greenford Media.