Fatal in The Last Frontier

No matter how "civilised" the urban areas become, Alaska will still kill you.

Competitor Dies in Grueling Back-Country Race


The inevitable has happened in the 32-year-old Alaska Mountain Wilderness Classic, and 44-year-old Rob Kehrer is dead.

A 10-year veteran of what some consider the toughest wilderness challenge in the world, Kehrer died in the Tana River of Wrangell St. Elias National Park and Preserve on Saturday after apparently launching his packraft a little too soon at the end of the lower river canyon.

Friend and traveling companion Greg Mills told park rangers he saw Kehrer's boat disappear into a boil of cold, glacial water from which it never emerged. 

Family of missing French adventurer thinks he could be alive, hiking in Katmai park

Two family members of a French adventurer missing in Alaska for more than two months have traveled thousands of miles in hopes of finding some, if any, clues about his disappearance. They think there’s a chance Francois Guenot is hiking in the area of Katmai National Park and Preserve due to important survival items missing from recovered belongings.

Anchorage Center controller a factor in 2013 fatal crash 

In a report released today, the National Transportation Safety Board made the unusual determination that ambiguous directions from Anchorage Center were a factor in an accident that occurred last year and took the lives of ACE Air captain Jeff Day and co-pilot Neil Jensen.

National Transportation Safety Administration investigator Brice Banning, inspects the site of a fatal March 2013 ACE Air crash, shortly after the accident. | NTSB

Further, the NTSB cited the air traffic controller for other factors, including a failure to monitor the flight. This determination stemmed from inaction on the part of the controller as the crew descended the aircraft below the minimum published altitude for the approach.

... The crash, which took place about 10 miles east of Aleknagik in Muklung Hills on March 8, 2013, was an all-cargo flight in a Beechcraft 1900. The NTSB found the primary cause to be the flight crew’s “failure to maintain terrain clearance which resulted in controlled flight into terrain in instrument meteorological conditions.”