On August 7, 2015, 29-year-old pilot Seth Grant Fairbanks of McGrath, Alaska, was aboard a Piper PA-18 Super Cub with passenger 23-year-old Anthony Hooper when the plane crashed into Knik Arm near Anchorage. Fairbanks, known for his work as a pilot on the Discovery Channel series Yukon Men and for humanitarian projects such as building water wells in South Sudan, was reportedly aiming to reach a family gathering. A distress call followed the crash; Fairbanks is believed to have made a 69-second satellite phone call to the Alaska State Trooper Post in Bethel saying he was standing on the plane’s floats and needed urgent rescue, but the call was rerouted and the connection was lost before a precise location could be fixed.

Search and rescue efforts faced extreme difficulties from swift currents, murky, glacier-fed silt water and dramatic tides in Knik Arm. The aircraft was located overturned and partially submerged in the mudflats, but there was no sign of either man. The Alaska Air National Guard eventually suspended the official search. On August 29, 2015, Anthony Hooper’s body was recovered from Cook Inlet; Seth Fairbanks remains missing. The aviation community and Fairbanks’s family held memorial services; his twin daughters continue to be among those left without closure.

If anyone was in the Anchorage or Knik Arm area that day or has information about the crash or sightings afterward, please share what is known.