Robert R. Johnson was 54 when he left Anchorage on September 30, 1974, aboard a Grumman G-73 Mallard, registration N2965, bound for Kodiak on a seabird survey flight. The aircraft carried four men: Johnson and three others named Jay Larry Haddock, Robert Bergman, and Leonard Boughton. Johnson was described as about 5 feet 10 inches tall and 175 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes, and is memorialized as a pilot with the Bureau of Land Management’s Division of Aircraft Services.

The twin-engine amphibious Mallard failed to reach Kodiak and was reported overdue; no distress call was received. Search-and-rescue teams conducted an extensive effort across the Gulf of Alaska’s vast ocean, coastline, islands, and mountains, but found no wreckage, debris, or occupants. With the plane never recovered, investigators could not determine a cause, and the flight’s final sequence of events remains unknown.

The case remains open in Alaska records as MP81042 and is memorialized by the Public Lands Foundation. If anyone saw the Grumman Mallard, N2965, or has information about that September 1974 flight, please share what is known.