On July 28, 2006, 39-year-old Ricky Posusta was one of three experienced pilots aboard a blue-and-white Aero Commander that departed Kenai, Alaska, for a familiarization flight to Anchorage. The aircraft, owned by Commander Northwest, also carried Ralph Aiken and Ian Beer and was reportedly being used that day to identify birds for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The flight made several trips between Kenai and Anchorage that day and had no filed flight plan or emergency locator signal.

Radar and satellite tracking placed the plane about three miles offshore in the Gompertz Channel of Cook Inlet, between Moose Point and Point Possession, roughly 10 to 15 miles southwest of Anchorage. A satellite device that updated every two minutes showed the aircraft flying low and slow along the peninsula before turning toward the inlet; the final recorded altitude was 495 feet and last contact was about 8:30 p.m., with the plane presumed to have crashed around 8:37 p.m. An extensive search by the Civil Air Patrol, Alaska State Troopers and the Coast Guard recovered no wreckage or sign of the men. The NTSB’s final report presumes the airplane was destroyed and lists the cause as undetermined because neither the aircraft nor occupants were located.

Did anyone in the area that evening see an aircraft matching this description or notice anything unusual along the north shore of the Kenai Peninsula?