Sean Matthew Hayes, 38, disappeared on January 26, 2021 after departing Ketchikan, Alaska in his 1949 Cessna 170A, tail number N9114A, bound for Lake Havasu, Arizona with a planned refueling stop in Port Angeles, Washington. A resident of Kodiak with about 600 flight hours, Hayes encountered strong headwinds and dense cloud cover over the Inside Passage and sent texts to his mother expressing concern about fuel.

Near Port Angeles at about 4:40 p.m. he broadcast a mayday saying he was going down in the water near a boat pulling a barge in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, roughly 20 miles south of Victoria, British Columbia. The U.S. Coast Guard, the Royal Canadian Air Force and local vessels conducted an extensive search covering nearly 1,200 square miles with infrared cameras and radar for two days but found no sign of Hayes or the Cessna. A preliminary NTSB report suggested the aircraft likely ran out of fuel. Few details remain after the exhaustive search; Hayes is remembered by family and friends for his love of flying.

Did anyone in the area that afternoon see or hear the plane, or have information about its last known position?