On June 25, 2003, 62-year-old Albert Novak of Soldotna, a retired Northwest Airlines pilot, was piloting a Cessna 180, registration N91303, on an air taxi flight from Hallo Bay to Homer. The flight left the Hallo Bay Bear Lodge about 2:30 p.m. with Novak and two passengers, James and Pamela Hawthorne, a married couple visiting from Florida. The Cessna never arrived in Homer and a massive search followed across nearly 7,000 square miles of Cook Inlet, uninhabited islands, glaciers and dense coastline.

Searchers located a debris field but not the main wreckage. On July 3, 2003 a fishing boat near Anchor Point recovered a woman’s body later tentatively identified as 58-year-old Pamela Hawthorne; an autopsy found drowning to be the cause. The NTSB concluded the airplane was presumed to have collided with the ocean for an undetermined reason. Albert Novak and 61-year-old James Hawthorne were never found and are presumed to have perished in the crash.

If anyone was in the Homer or Cook Inlet area on June 25, 2003 and remembers anything unusual — sightings, sounds, or debris — investigators and families would welcome that information.