Melissa McMartin, 58, and her husband Clayton McMartin, 59, from Roanoke, Texas, disappeared after their Beechcraft Bonanza B-36 failed to reach Ketchikan on August 27, 2023. The couple last had communication about 18 miles inland from Cape Yakataga while flying from Glennallen toward Ketchikan en route to Washington to visit family before moose season.

Searchers located wreckage on the evening of August 28 in a remote, heavily glaciated area north of Mount Leeper’s summit in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, at roughly 5,100 feet elevation on the Yahtse Glacier. Persistent bad weather, hanging glaciers, deep crevasses and accumulating snow made the site inaccessible; after a September 5 aerial reconnaissance, officials halted recovery and declared the wreckage permanently inaccessible. No on-the-ground recovery was completed and the fate of those aboard remains unresolved.

If anyone has information about the flight, the plane’s last transmissions, or saw the aircraft in that area on August 27, please come forward.