Speaker 1: Six weeks ago, a light plane carrying House majority leader
Speaker 1: of Hail Bobs and Alaskan representative Nick Vegas, disappeared on
Speaker 1: a flight in Alaska. Today, the Air Force They're announced
Speaker 1: that the search is being called off. On November two,
Speaker 1: the largest search in American history ended in failure. Despite
Speaker 1: a colossal effort spanning thirty nine days and three thousand
Speaker 1: square miles, no sign of the missing plane surfaced, at
Speaker 1: least at the time, despite the efforts of Coast Guard cutters,
Speaker 1: a top secret spy plane, an elite Army mountain unit,
Speaker 1: and hundreds of volunteers. Nothing despite more than a thousand
Speaker 1: Air Force sorties, forty seven thousand feet of film covering
Speaker 1: a hundred and twenty five thousand square miles of terrain,
Speaker 1: and eight possible sightings. Nothing. Despite everything, nothing, Your first
Speaker 1: reaction might be, well, it's Alaska, that's not surprising, and
Speaker 1: that was mine too, at least initially, But for no
Speaker 1: sign of the plane, not one solitary piece to ever
Speaker 1: surface was very rare, according to Air Force Major Henry Soccer,
Speaker 1: who told reporters that quote, what we're looking for we
Speaker 1: locate of the last twere planes to vanish in Alaska
Speaker 1: An official said only three had never been found. From
Speaker 1: my Heart media, this is missing in Alaska, The story
Speaker 1: of two congressmen who vanished in two and my quest
Speaker 1: to figure out what happened to them. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: John Wallzac. Two days before the surge ended, Peggy beget
Speaker 1: Nick's wife received a sinister cryptic letter pasted together from
Speaker 1: scraps of newspaper like an old time ransom note. Your husband,
Speaker 1: Mr Beck, an American Croatian Alaska Democratic rep. Has been
Speaker 1: assassinated by our organization. He and others aboard will not
Speaker 1: be found reason criminally insane nature of his pact with
Speaker 1: American Croats separatists. Congressional record e one three five nine
Speaker 1: five nine six. Croatian nation doesn't exist, never did. Same
Speaker 1: will happen to everybody in destructible engagement against our dear Yugoslavia.
Speaker 1: High position in American fascist government will not matter. We
Speaker 1: are not in connection with Yugoslav government, organization of Yugoslav Nationalists,
Speaker 1: or you nah. The letter arrived in a handwritten no
Speaker 1: envelope post smart November twenty and mailed from Detroit. Think
Speaker 1: about that for a minute. Someone took the time to
Speaker 1: pacete together an anonymous letter from newspaper clippings, then mailed
Speaker 1: it in a handwritten envelope. Sure they could have had
Speaker 1: someone else mail it, maybe a friend in Detroit, but
Speaker 1: the whole thing seemed amateurish, like some kind of bumbling hoax.
Speaker 1: That said, the FBI took it seriously, and for good reason.
Speaker 1: Starting in the nineteen sixties, Croatian separatists had waged a
Speaker 1: violent international campaign to establish an independent Croatian nation split
Speaker 1: off from socialist Yugoslavia. For two decades, they carried out
Speaker 1: a series of high profile hijackings, bombings, and assassinations, including
Speaker 1: multiple attacks in nineteen seventy two, the year Beget, who
Speaker 1: was of Croatian ancestry, disappeared. Perhaps the most famous occurred
Speaker 1: in January nineteen seventy two, when a briefcase bomb planted
Speaker 1: by separatists ripped apart a commercial airliner high over Czechoslovakia. Today,
Speaker 1: the bombing is best remembered not for the twenty seven
Speaker 1: people who died, but for the one who lived, a
Speaker 1: flight attendant named Vesna Volkovich, who survived a thirty three
Speaker 1: thousand foot fall to the ground. Eight months later, on
Speaker 1: September sixteenth, nineteen seventy two, exactly one month of the
Speaker 1: day before Nick Beggett vanished, separatists conducted near simultaneous attacks
Speaker 1: on two different continents, hijacking in Sweden and bombing in Australia.
Speaker 1: That day was a turning point for the movement. According
Speaker 1: to doctor matte Nikola Tokes, the author of a book
Speaker 1: called Croatian Radical Separatism and Diaspora Terrorism during the Cold War,
Speaker 1: these two events in coordination with one another, actually very
Speaker 1: quickly marked I think an important turning point for Chreatian terrorists,
Speaker 1: this idea that there are no innocent victims. Before nineteen
Speaker 1: September nineteen seventy two, creations were very clear about targeting
Speaker 1: either institutions of the state or those they deemed to
Speaker 1: be involved in the state. So they were more than
Speaker 1: willing to to target civilians in places like Belgrade Um
Speaker 1: Serbian civilians and they're thinking who in any case couldn't
Speaker 1: be innocent. But for the first time, non Serbs, non
Speaker 1: Yugoslavs were involved in Christian terrorism with the hijacking of
Speaker 1: the airplane and then with the bombing on George Street
Speaker 1: in in Sydney. Dr Tokis, who conducted extensive research for
Speaker 1: his book had access to, among other things, the papers
Speaker 1: of certain international spy agencies. I asked him if he
Speaker 1: ever came across any mention of Nick Baggett. I've never
Speaker 1: come across discussions of him in any security services archives
Speaker 1: that I've seen. Clearly, there's a lot of stuff I
Speaker 1: was never able to get to, but particularly in Australia Asio,
Speaker 1: which belongs to the Five Eyes Agreement, so the United States, Canada,
Speaker 1: Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and Baggage never comes up
Speaker 1: in any of those documents. Beggage had no known ties
Speaker 1: as separatists, though he did speak to the American Croatian
Speaker 1: Academic Club of Cleveland, Ohio into nine, but that speech
Speaker 1: was benign. Not everyone advocating for an independent Croatian state
Speaker 1: was violent. The only reason I'm even mentioning it is
Speaker 1: because it's what you'll find referenced in the exact part
Speaker 1: of the Congressional record cited in the letter claiming Baggage
Speaker 1: had been assassinated, which, by the way, how many hoaxters
Speaker 1: cite the Congressional record That letter had been signed by
Speaker 1: a right wing fascist group called or You naw The
Speaker 1: organization of Yugoslav nationalists. The only problem by the time
Speaker 1: Beggatt vanished or you not have been defunct for forty
Speaker 1: three years. Dr Tolke, it's for one, despite deep digging,
Speaker 1: never found a single reference to any group claiming to
Speaker 1: be or Youna between nine and now until I emailed him.
Speaker 1: Do you think that the most likely explanation is that
Speaker 1: this letter was in fact not sent by pro Yugoslav individuals,
Speaker 1: that by the Croasian separatists. That to me would be
Speaker 1: the most likely UM explanation, right, it's it's the way
Speaker 1: of exploiting this tragedy to force FBI attention away from
Speaker 1: krots towards other groups right to to you know, because
Speaker 1: the resources for combating these organizations was quite small, I
Speaker 1: mean they were very limited, certainly in the beginning. And
Speaker 1: the idea is if if the FBI is spending its
Speaker 1: time chasing shadows or chasing organizations that don't exist, all
Speaker 1: the better that they're not chasing pro separatist movements UM.
Speaker 1: And I can very easily see the thinking on the
Speaker 1: part of this letter writer is saying like, look, you know,
Speaker 1: there aren't so many people UM engaged in these questions
Speaker 1: in the FBI, and if they are occupied otherwise, not
Speaker 1: with us, but with something that they'll never even be
Speaker 1: able to find, than less time for them to deal
Speaker 1: with us. And this letter strikes me most likely as
Speaker 1: serving that purpose, and serve that purpose it did. The
Speaker 1: FBI conducted investigations in eight cities, even interviewing Baggage his
Speaker 1: parents in Minnesota, but it found no proof of any
Speaker 1: plot to murder the congressman. Curiously, though, the Bureau did
Speaker 1: recover too latent fingerprints from the handwritten envelope. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure whether or not those fingerprints still exist, believe me,
Speaker 1: I looked, But if they do, tucked away in a
Speaker 1: file somewhere, it would be fascinating to run them through
Speaker 1: a modern database to see if any matches pop up.
Speaker 1: In late December, the missing men were declared dead. Hail
Speaker 1: Boggs of Louisiana, who was lost last year in an
Speaker 1: aeroplane over Alaska, was a man who belonged to the
Speaker 1: House of Representatives as much as any member in this century.
Speaker 1: Boggs was Majority leader when he was lost. In Today,
Speaker 1: many of his congressional colleagues, along with Vice President Agnew
Speaker 1: and former President Lyndon Johnson, were in New Orleans for
Speaker 1: a memorial service. Fred Briggs was there. The memorial service
Speaker 1: was held at St. Louis Cathedral in the French Quarter.
Speaker 1: It was open to the public, friends, political and personal,
Speaker 1: and that takes in a considerable number of people. The
Speaker 1: late Hail Boggs with a Southern Democrat. In his thirty
Speaker 1: two years of service in Congress, he bucked many regional trends.
Speaker 1: He became an outspoken civil rights advocate. In the mid
Speaker 1: nineteen six piece, he called for the resignation of j.
Speaker 1: Edgar Hoover, and he even criticized the oil the police
Speaker 1: in the lawrence, which is not a necessarily popular thing
Speaker 1: to do when an oil stake went Louisiana. Yet throughout
Speaker 1: all this he remained immensely popular in his home state
Speaker 1: and with his colleagues in Washington. They were here today
Speaker 1: to pay their last respects. If Hail Boggs the individual
Speaker 1: cast a giant shadow, so did his nearly three decades
Speaker 1: of distinguished service in the House of Representatives. He loved
Speaker 1: the House, where the esteem, respect and love in which
Speaker 1: he was held by all members, regardless of political persuasion,
Speaker 1: have never been surpassed in the history of that great institution.
Speaker 1: He loved his colleagues, he loved his friends, he loved
Speaker 1: his family, he loved people, he loved his country, love all.
Speaker 1: He loves his God. Three days later, in Alaska, hundreds
Speaker 1: gathered at East Anchorage High School to pay tribute to
Speaker 1: Nick Baggage. Sunday, January seven has been proclaimed Nick Baggage
Speaker 1: Memorial Tribute Day. The voice of Governor William Egan, we
Speaker 1: are going to miss our friend who contributed so much
Speaker 1: to the well being of all Alaska during his time
Speaker 1: with us, distinguished visitors, and makes me love of family.
Speaker 1: There's something about this great land of ours that attracts men.
Speaker 1: Perhaps it is a land it's awesome and even terrifying beauty,
Speaker 1: the richness of its vast wilderness, the bounty of its
Speaker 1: forests and streams. Perhaps it is the opportunity the fabled
Speaker 1: El Dorado, the adventure land we learned about as boys,
Speaker 1: in which part of us will always pursue. Perhaps it
Speaker 1: is a challenge of life in a society that is
Speaker 1: still in the making of existence, in the land where
Speaker 1: natural always have the upper hand, for the small tasks
Speaker 1: of survival must compete with the great decisions of the day.
Speaker 1: Perhaps it is the people. Whatever the reasons, many come,
Speaker 1: but as all of us know, very few stay. The
Speaker 1: challenge of Alaska exceed the strength of all but a few.
Speaker 1: Good Man Nick Baggage was one who stayed, for he
Speaker 1: was one of us and Alaska and for all and
Speaker 1: anything that means he is with hers still. That was
Speaker 1: Email Naughty, a prominent Democratic activists and Alaska native. One
Speaker 1: week after the memorial, Naughty and dozens of others gathered
Speaker 1: at a convention to choose a candidate to run in
Speaker 1: a special election called to fill the state's vacant health seat.
Speaker 1: Three people saw the nomination Naughty, State Senator Chancy Croft
Speaker 1: and Peggy Baggage. Thanks, Oh, we are now about to
Speaker 1: set aside as much of our sorrow as our hearts
Speaker 1: still allowed, and to undertake the process of selecting a
Speaker 1: succestance to the last of the US seat. As both
Speaker 1: a candidate and as Nick's widows, I recognized my own
Speaker 1: responsibility to indicate the time for setting the side memories
Speaker 1: and undertaking that process. That time is now, and I
Speaker 1: expect that Alaskans will react with the same resilience and
Speaker 1: hard work that always surfaces of difficult times. During the
Speaker 1: past two weeks. I have traveled throughout the state and
Speaker 1: spoken with countless alostoms. I've spoken with many of you,
Speaker 1: and with friends in Washington. Do seem although the events
Speaker 1: of the past few days have prevented my speaking to you,
Speaker 1: I wanted to call this meeting today to renew our discussion,
Speaker 1: to give you the open opportunity to question me, and
Speaker 1: to say with as much force as I am able.
Speaker 1: I am a candidate, and I doubt that many of
Speaker 1: you will ever see a more resolute or committed candidates.
Speaker 1: Competition at the convention was civil but fierce. At one point,
Speaker 1: Peggy claimed an important committee had been rigged against her
Speaker 1: when she placed third in an initial vote, She decided
Speaker 1: to throw her support to Naughty, who then won. Imor Nati,
Speaker 1: president of the Alaska Native Foundation and chairman of the
Speaker 1: party that nominated him, a thirty nine year old Native
Speaker 1: born of Athabaskan and the Italian heritage in the river
Speaker 1: village of Payattunk, now the first Alaska Native ever nominated
Speaker 1: to run for Congress, Larry Carpenter broadcast Center News. Naught
Speaker 1: East triumph was short lived, though a month later he
Speaker 1: narrowly lost the special election to Republican Don Young, a
Speaker 1: riverboat captain from fort Yukon, Alaska, who had been defeated
Speaker 1: by Nick Beggett's the previous November. Even though Beggetts was
Speaker 1: missing and presumed at at the time amazingly, Young, now
Speaker 1: eighty six, still serves in Congress. I spoke with him
Speaker 1: by phone in late and so, Congressman, you're the Dean
Speaker 1: of the House, the longest serving Republican congressman in American history,
Speaker 1: one of the ten longest serving congressman of any party
Speaker 1: in history. Often referred to as alaska As third Senator.
Speaker 1: But you hold another distinction, one of the only people
Speaker 1: to lose a Congressional race to a dead man. Uh.
Speaker 1: Do you think you would be in Congress today if
Speaker 1: Nick Beggatts had lived? That's the question I can't answer.
Speaker 1: A chance to be, you know, because remember I were
Speaker 1: from fort Yukon, I was setting up to run and
Speaker 1: seventy four. Uh, but you know who knows what the
Speaker 1: votes November? It was a Democrat state. We had that
Speaker 1: Bill Egan was with. The governor was a Demot the
Speaker 1: Democratic legislative body. These were good Democrats, by the way. Uh. So, Uh,
Speaker 1: you know who knows, uh, you know, he beat me,
Speaker 1: but I was able to come through the general election.
Speaker 1: Around the same time Beggatt's vanished, Young himself had narrowly
Speaker 1: avoided a deadly crash, something all too common in Alaska.
Speaker 1: I got on an airplane once eighty five with my
Speaker 1: wife and myself and the pilot, and we lived. And
Speaker 1: it was terrible and we got quite a way as
Speaker 1: an icing condition said, and we started pulling ice in
Speaker 1: and I'm playing co pilot, and the pilots said, we've
Speaker 1: got to go down. And I said, you're right, And
Speaker 1: I thought, ugly, you can't see anything wings or iceing up,
Speaker 1: and you started down. We started down, sort of a
Speaker 1: gradual approach, and we finally broke out out of the
Speaker 1: icing conditions, and where you can see, we had followed
Speaker 1: the contour of one of those mountains that comes out
Speaker 1: of the graph down into the area. And that's that's
Speaker 1: what God was taking care of me, because we've been
Speaker 1: two hundred feet or two to two hundred yards uh
Speaker 1: in a different angle, we would not be here today.
Speaker 1: Young's victory in the nineteen seventy three special election had
Speaker 1: a major, long lasting impact on Alaska politics. Many people
Speaker 1: in the state Democrats at least wonder what would have
Speaker 1: happened if Nick Beggett's had lived and Young had never
Speaker 1: been elected. Sierra Beggett Slade, nick granddaughter is one. Had
Speaker 1: he lived, UM, and if this never happened, I think
Speaker 1: that Alaska and our politics would have gone in a
Speaker 1: much different direction. I think the fact that Don Young
Speaker 1: has been in his position for so long UM has
Speaker 1: taken us down a different path. And I think that
Speaker 1: if my grandfather we're still here today, and if he
Speaker 1: would have been able to live that full life, things
Speaker 1: would have been different. And right now we're you know,
Speaker 1: we're in a recession as a state and things are
Speaker 1: looking pretty grim, and maybe that wouldn't be the case
Speaker 1: if you were still here. Even though you never met
Speaker 1: your grandfather. Do you feel a sense of loss? I do, UM,
Speaker 1: just because I feel like we would have had things
Speaker 1: in common. And I don't necessarily feel that with too
Speaker 1: many relatives, UM, But just from what I know about him,
Speaker 1: it seems that he he had such a genuine heart.
Speaker 1: Did you ever hear any personal stories about your grandfather
Speaker 1: that you can share, any anecdotes? Nothing? Honestly, growing up,
Speaker 1: we didn't talk much about what happened the disappearance about
Speaker 1: my grandfather in general, I don't know much about him
Speaker 1: other than what I've heard from the community. So yeah,
Speaker 1: hearing the details of that, hopefully through this podcast, will
Speaker 1: be pretty interesting. And how do you think that the
Speaker 1: loss of your grandfather affected the family as a whole.
Speaker 1: It's hard to say, because we really didn't talk much
Speaker 1: about it. I don't know. I think that it would
Speaker 1: be a different situation if he were still here. Imagining
Speaker 1: his children, I think that they had a hard time
Speaker 1: with his loss obviously. I think that it has affected
Speaker 1: generations to come as far as emotional stability. But there
Speaker 1: is a positive light to it too. And I think
Speaker 1: that a lot of his kids have been so involved
Speaker 1: in politics because they felt like they needed to because
Speaker 1: he missed out on the opportunity to really finish that out. Um.
Speaker 1: So I think it's driven a lot of us to
Speaker 1: pursue more in his name. Down in Asiana. That same
Speaker 1: sense of civic engagement persisted in the Boggs family too.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy three, like Peggy Baggage, Lynda Boggs sought
Speaker 1: the Democratic nomination to run in a special election to
Speaker 1: fill her husband's empty seat. Mrs Lynda Boggs, wide of
Speaker 1: the late Louisiana Congressman, won the Democratic nomination to succeed him.
Speaker 1: She got three times as many votes as are four
Speaker 1: competitors altogether, and Mrs Boggs will face Republican Robert E.
Speaker 1: Lee in a general election on March. Lindy went on
Speaker 1: to crush Lee by thirty two thousand votes, making history.
Speaker 1: Is the first woman elected to Congress from Louisiana. She
Speaker 1: would serve nine terms in the House and later as
Speaker 1: the US Ambassador to the Vatican. She died at the
Speaker 1: age of so up to this point, I've spent most
Speaker 1: of my time talking about the Congressman, but there were
Speaker 1: two other men who disappeared too. One was Baggage Aid
Speaker 1: Russ Brown, a Nebraska native who studied anthropology and chemistry
Speaker 1: before moving to Ketchikan, Alaska, seven where he met his wife,
Speaker 1: Penny and became a stepfather to her kids from a
Speaker 1: previous marriage in nineteen seventy two, only three months before
Speaker 1: he vanished. Russ and Penny had a daughter of their own,
Speaker 1: Marine Nicole. Other than that, I don't know much about him.
Speaker 1: My attempts to contact his family were unsuccessful. I saved
Speaker 1: Don John's the pilot, for last, because he's a very
Speaker 1: important character in this story, the man many blame for
Speaker 1: the planes disappearing. John's was an extremely experienced, incompetent pilot.
Speaker 1: By the time he vanished, he had accumulated more than
Speaker 1: seventeen thousand hours of flight time. No pilot last seventeen
Speaker 1: thousand hours flying small planes and brutal conditions in the
Speaker 1: Alaska interior unless they're talented. If you're wondering about his name, yes,
Speaker 1: John's j O. N Z was originally Jones. He changed
Speaker 1: it to John's because there was already a pilot in
Speaker 1: Fairbanks named Don Jones, and he wanted something unique. John's
Speaker 1: was a blonde, blue eyed ladies man, an army veteran
Speaker 1: of the Korean War, and a self styled intellectual with
Speaker 1: a rise sense of humor and a daredevil streak. He
Speaker 1: did have it a masculine quality to him very much,
Speaker 1: so he wasn't a very very attractive person. Effectually had
Speaker 1: a bit of a hook knows, but he certainly had
Speaker 1: a lot of Christmas and charm and was attractive enough.
Speaker 1: That's Mike Gravel, a former U. S Senator represented Alaska
Speaker 1: from nineteen sixty nine to one. He knew and often
Speaker 1: flew with John's. He had flown near around repeatedly. Uh
Speaker 1: and was you know, was active with political figures in
Speaker 1: the state, helping them get around. Uh and uh and
Speaker 1: so that's as much as I can recall about him.
Speaker 1: He was a very very nice guy and a very
Speaker 1: competent pilot. Johnson was also a bibliophile who in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty six, after moving to Fairbanks, joined the Flying Poets,
Speaker 1: a group of pilots who flew around the state sharing
Speaker 1: poetry with school kids in remote villages. Around that time,
Speaker 1: he also got married, then soon after divorced. In the
Speaker 1: late fifties, he traveled to the UK, where he tried
Speaker 1: several times to swim twenty one miles across the English Channel.
Speaker 1: He was unsuccessful. Deflated and in need of money, he
Speaker 1: shuffled around Europe for a while, working for a series
Speaker 1: of airlines and looting one in Luxembourg. That's where he
Speaker 1: met his second wife, Willie. He was an extroverted person.
Speaker 1: He liked to be around people. He also liked periods
Speaker 1: where he could be alone. You know. He used to
Speaker 1: write a lot, but you know, I didn't keep any
Speaker 1: of of the writings. Did he keep a journal or diary? Yeah?
Speaker 1: He did. You don't still have that to you know?
Speaker 1: I don't. Do you know if your son does? By chance?
Speaker 1: Do you know if your son still has it or
Speaker 1: do it? Was it lost? That was lost? And I
Speaker 1: think that was just just throw in a way after
Speaker 1: he disappeared. As a journalist, you're not supposed to get
Speaker 1: attached to sources. You're supposed to be cold and objective.
Speaker 1: But I've never really believed that. I think you can
Speaker 1: be fair and tell the truth without morphing into an emotional,
Speaker 1: less automated scribe. Journalists have opinions, and to admit that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean every thing we do is fake news. It
Speaker 1: means we're human, so I'll admit it. I like Willie
Speaker 1: a lot. She reminds me of my grandma. They're actually
Speaker 1: the same age, and like my grandma, she's an immigrant
Speaker 1: with fascinating stories. Willie told me not only of Alaska,
Speaker 1: but about watching Nazis marched down her street when they
Speaker 1: invaded Holland in nineteen. By the end of World War Two,
Speaker 1: she said her family was so hungry they ate tulip bulbs.
Speaker 1: Willie and Donn had one child, a son, Aaron, who
Speaker 1: was only ten when Don vanished. Don's death had a
Speaker 1: horrible impact on him. Willie said, he's got his own
Speaker 1: problems and uh, trying to keep his head of earth water.
Speaker 1: And he's he's a lot like his dad in a way. Um,
Speaker 1: she's a good She had just fifty on his shold.
Speaker 1: But he's a good you know, um morally, and he'll
Speaker 1: give anybody to share him is back but saying Tobe,
Speaker 1: and he has always had a hard time living in society.
Speaker 1: He just doesn't take any ship of anybody. Has put
Speaker 1: it thataway, you know, So why used him a hard time?
Speaker 1: He hasn't cower and h they don't like that. But
Speaker 1: that's the same thing Mrs Dad, you know, and Dad
Speaker 1: just tell them where to put it. I first interviewed
Speaker 1: Willie by phone, then visited her at her home in Colorado,
Speaker 1: where we spoke for several hours. In the aftermath of
Speaker 1: Don's disappearance, she said, not only did officials refuse to
Speaker 1: share information with her, likely because she was Don's ex wife,
Speaker 1: even though she was still the mother of his only child,
Speaker 1: but most people also blamed Don for the disappearance itself.
Speaker 1: They still do. There are a few reasons for this.
Speaker 1: First and foremost, in October ninety two, the month he vanished,
Speaker 1: Don had authored a controversial article for Flying Magazine titled
Speaker 1: Ice without Fear. In it, he wrote quote, playing with
Speaker 1: ice is like playing with the devil. Fun but don't
Speaker 1: play unless you can cheat. Willie said he was being sarcastic,
Speaker 1: that people didn't get his humor. He took risks, she said,
Speaker 1: but only when he was flying alone, not when he
Speaker 1: had passengers. Read the article closely beyond the sensational quotes,
Speaker 1: and you'll see that, yes, Don was arrogant, but he
Speaker 1: also recognized ice to be a formidable, powerful enemy. The
Speaker 1: weight of ice is not what debilitates, he wrote, It's
Speaker 1: the shape. Twenty strategically placed pounds of ice will sink
Speaker 1: a good light Twin the day he disappeared, he flew
Speaker 1: a light twin assessment three tennessee. There are at least
Speaker 1: two other things that cast shade on Don too. First,
Speaker 1: it's unclear whether or not he actually had an Emergency
Speaker 1: Locator transmitter or e l T on board with him
Speaker 1: when he vanished. In his final transmission, he said he
Speaker 1: did but the National Transportation Safety Board disputed that. Second,
Speaker 1: the NTSP criticized John's for flying under visual flight Rules
Speaker 1: or VFR, saying the weather wasn't conducive for a fly
Speaker 1: by I flight. Multiple pilots I interviewed agreed saying instrument
Speaker 1: flight rules or i f R would have been preferable.
Speaker 1: So between the article, the e l T confusion, and
Speaker 1: the VFR flight plan, I get it, but I also
Speaker 1: think absent records showing what happened, it's unfair to pin
Speaker 1: all the blame on John's. It's unclear, for one, how
Speaker 1: much of a role passenger pressure played. Several people told
Speaker 1: me that the Congressman pushed John's to make the flight
Speaker 1: despite the turbulent weather. They were in a rush to
Speaker 1: get to Juno then back to d C regardless. As
Speaker 1: the pilot, it was John's responsibility to say no if
Speaker 1: he thought conditions were too poor. So then what happened?
Speaker 1: It seems simple, right, throwing a cocky pilot and bad weather,
Speaker 1: and voila, the plane iced up and crashed, probably into
Speaker 1: Prince William's sound Acam's razor case solved. It makes sense
Speaker 1: past ice one other explanation. Theoretically could be that the
Speaker 1: plane suffered a catastrophic mechanical failure, but per my research,
Speaker 1: that seems unlikely. Phil hewith a mechanic who worked for John's,
Speaker 1: finished an exhaustive hundred hour inspection of the plane the
Speaker 1: day before it disappeared. Typically, how long would a hundred
Speaker 1: hour and inspection take? Like, how long did it take
Speaker 1: you to inspect the plane before right before it disappeared?
Speaker 1: Sometimes it would take me two to three days to
Speaker 1: do that and readon. I say that because you've got
Speaker 1: to pull all the inspection covers off, look in there,
Speaker 1: and some of them holes are pretty tight. You're using
Speaker 1: a mirror and the flash Like you get a change
Speaker 1: your oil, you get a tear to take the spark
Speaker 1: plugs out, clean them and test them, make sure they
Speaker 1: function and put everything back. Change the oil in the
Speaker 1: stuff on it, check the props, clean the prop up
Speaker 1: for you know, if it has any knicks, looking for
Speaker 1: obvious stuff that's visible. I mean it varies. It's kind
Speaker 1: of like vehicle. You know, some of the model TS
Speaker 1: model as they were easy to work on, easy to
Speaker 1: change and so on, change and check spark plugs. Well,
Speaker 1: you take engines nowadays in the vehicles the open the hood,
Speaker 1: you can't even see it. It's covered with stuff. So
Speaker 1: airplanes are no different. Right after he finished the inspection,
Speaker 1: and I mean immediately after John's flew the plane from
Speaker 1: Fairbanks Anchorage. If there was some horrible mechanical problem him,
Speaker 1: it probably would have shown up during this fight. Nevertheless,
Speaker 1: he was repeatedly interrogated by authorities, desperate franswers. He had
Speaker 1: none to give. They just wouldn't leave it alone because
Speaker 1: they couldn't find anybody. Two blame it on because they
Speaker 1: didn't know. They couldn't. They said they couldn't find the airplane,
Speaker 1: so they couldn't prove what it was, pilot air, mechanical air,
Speaker 1: and putting me in court only implied that it was
Speaker 1: a mechanical air on my part, and they needed somebody
Speaker 1: to get tripped up and say stuff that would incriminate him,
Speaker 1: and they couldn't do it because first of all, I
Speaker 1: knew I did everything right. I would have a free
Speaker 1: conscience of it, including today. So you know, no, I'll
Speaker 1: tell you the same story. You know, he asked me
Speaker 1: over and over different questions. And if you don't tell
Speaker 1: the truth, you have to remember, and you know It's
Speaker 1: been two years back and I still remember it. So
Speaker 1: I did tell the truth. So then again, what happened?
Speaker 1: Why did the plane disappear? Mechanical failure, pilot error, bad weather,
Speaker 1: any are possible. All are possible. But sometimes when an
Speaker 1: answer seems obvious, when you rely too heavily on Acams Razer,
Speaker 1: you overlook other explanations, explanations that may seem far fetched
Speaker 1: but are possible. You hear something crazy and you immediately
Speaker 1: discount it, even when you shouldn't. And this is where
Speaker 1: the story takes a dramatic turn, because up until this point,
Speaker 1: I've had to set the scene, to share exposition and
Speaker 1: biographies and technical details. All of this is important, but
Speaker 1: it's not what kept me going. It's not why I'm
Speaker 1: talking to you today. See, just when I was about
Speaker 1: to give up to move on to another story, someone
Speaker 1: told me something so startling I didn't believe them at first.
Speaker 1: Only seventeen months after the plane disappeared, they said, the
Speaker 1: widow of one of the missing men married a murderer,
Speaker 1: a man with mafia ties, a man who had experienced
Speaker 1: with explosives, and this man told the FBI the missing
Speaker 1: plane had been bombed. Next time on Missing in Alaska.
Speaker 1: So we sat there and we just kept making notes
Speaker 1: and watching all the activities and the pictures being taken,
Speaker 1: and boom, it's noted that Jerry married Peggy. Before I
Speaker 1: ask again for your help, I want to thank everyone
Speaker 1: who called in and submitted information online after last week's episode.
Speaker 1: We're reviewing everything and appreciate your support. This week, I
Speaker 1: only have one task for you. Sometime between nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: and seventy two, Don John's, the Missing Pilot, gave an
Speaker 1: interview to an Alaska radio station. I don't know which
Speaker 1: station or in which city, but I guess one in
Speaker 1: Fairbanks or maybe Anchorage. If you track it down, let
Speaker 1: me know. I've never heard his voice and I want
Speaker 1: to see what he said. You can reach us by
Speaker 1: phone at one eight three three m I A tips.
Speaker 1: That's one eight three three six four two eight four
Speaker 1: seven seven again one eight three three six four two
Speaker 1: eight four seven seven, or you can reach us via
Speaker 1: email at tips at iHeart media dot com. That's tip
Speaker 1: T I p s at I heeart Media dot com.
Speaker 1: Ben Bolan is our executive producer. Paul Decan is our
Speaker 1: supervising producer. Chris Brown is our assistant producer, Seth Nicholas
Speaker 1: Johnson is our producer. Sam T. Garden is our research assistant.
Speaker 1: And I'm your host and executive producer, John Wallzac. You
Speaker 1: can find me on Twitter at at john Wallzac j
Speaker 1: O n w A l c z a K. Footage
Speaker 1: for this episode was provided by NBC k qu f
Speaker 1: D and the Vanderbilt Television News Archive special thanks to
Speaker 1: the Alaska Film Archives at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Speaker 1: Missing in Alaska is a co production of iHeart Media
Speaker 1: and Greenford Media.