The accident that killed former Senator Ted Stevens and four others (including a sixteen year old girl) outside of Dillingham sounds very much like pilot error to me. The part where the plane impacted the side of a mountain in crap weather is a dead giveaway on that score and while the NTSB investigation will take months, unless they find out the wing has fallen off (as an extreme example), it's going to be pilot error.

In other words, he just shouldn't have been in the air.

This has not stopped everyone and their cousin from talking about the dangers of Alaska aviation however which drives me completely crazy. The Washington Post is exhibit number one. A bit from their front page article:

Still, it's the nature of Alaskan pilots to tackle challenges that others might not, he said.

In an age when technology has given pilots tools that the Wright brothers never dreamed of, much of Alaskan flying still relies more on sharp eyes and an agile hand on the controls.

Clearly this guy has never seen a plane land in Chicago, NYC, Boston or pretty much ANY northern state during the winter. And as to Alaskan pilots relying "more on sharp eyes and an agile hand on the controls" that is laughable. We have air traffic control in AK. We have instrument approaches. We have GPS. We have charts. And while there are a lot of locations with gravel runways (it's very common), they are still maintained runways and not just mud puddles out in the boonies. In fact we have tens of thousands of flights every year that get up and down just fine. But that's not the story anyone wants to hear. Consider this from Slate:

Alaska's safety hazards also have to do with how people fly. Commercial airlines do operate in Alaska, but the state relies disproportionately on air taxis and commuter planes, which have worse safety records than jetliners. Private planes are common, too—Alaska has the highest number of pilots per capita in the country. Many of these private planes are single-engine, and if the engine fails, there's no backup. What's more, the National Transportation Safety Board has noted a cavalier attitude among pilots in Alaska, commonly called "bush syndrome." Compounding this problem, airfields in Alaska don't always adequately communicate landing and weather conditions to incoming pilots.

My thesis had an entire section on so-called "bush syndrome" and that is an outdated, outmoded, very nearly irrelevant argument that dates to decades ago and not modern times. Pilots crash more often than not due to pressure or arrogance but not some kind of syndrome. As to commuters and air taxis (like the companies I worked for), they fly by federal regulations just like companies in the Lower 48. If you break the regs its not because the rules aren't there but because you don't want to follow them and it's not because you shouldn't follow them or Alaska doesn't allow you to follow them. (And just so you know, air taxis and commuters also fly commerically. The terminology is the same.)

If I was an investigator, I'd be asking the lodge this guy worked for just why he took off that day and what the forecasted weather was. I can't imagine the passengers (several of whom were with their children) pressured him to fly. But I could be wrong. He must have thought he could get in and clearly he couldn't. Just what kind of bad idea this flight was still remains to be seen but don't blame Alaska for it and please, don't write about how much harder it is to fly up there.

In case you're wondering, my book is most often kicked back because it is perceived as not having a built-in audience. The cynic in me considers everyday writing the "gee whiz, flying is scary" Alaska aviation book I know would go over big. From the coverage I'm seeing over this accident It's certainly what everyone wants to read.

[Post pic of Frontier Flying Service BE1900 - an Alaskan bush plane]