Flying Wild Alaska: What Happened, Where and Why.

one two three Amazing Grace How Sweet the Sound it's a tough day for all of us whenever we have a plane crash and people die this one is especially tough for many people that know the whole story of Flying Wild Alaska Jim tweedo and Shane Reynolds it was only four days ago right about now their plane crashed in Alaska I've been amazed at the total lack of information about what happened and where it was and all the details on what truly happened Jim was a fabulous pilot very experienced how could Jim tweeto get killed in a plane crash I did a lot of research and I probably made 50 phone calls I have been on this kind of since it happened because none of it ever made sense some of the things that I heard initially never made sense I now have what I believe is going to be the correct answer remember this is my channel probable cause I'm kind of going on a limb on speculation but this is all based on what I've talked to the people up there in Alaska that actually know a couple of fallacies in the story that are not actually true tell you the whole story here and at the very end of this I'm going to leave a very short musical tribute I hope that you'll stay to the end offer a moment of silence for these families and these remaining family and friends Left Behind after Jim and Shane have gone on ahead of us the story is is that the the bear hunting season was winding up to a close here these individuals had been involved in some kind of a bear hunting Mission the story was that uh they ended up at this place 35 miles Northeast of something well that's statue miles the state police doesn't do anything in terms of nautical miles so they did not fly in and drop one off first of all the Cessna 180 according to fa Records Was a stock 180 with an 0470 engine it's either 260 or 265 horse engine it was not an i o 550 if it was the records have not been updated but I think it was a standard stock 180 which makes a huge difference they flew in Jim flew that airplane in there empty and he picked up one person plus they picked up a bear they had been bear hunting they they picked up a bear the remnants of a bear that had been cut and cleaned and packaged a bear is very heavy I'm not sure how much weight the bear brought to the equation but they tried to make a takeoff now it's two people plus their fuel plus the bear and I found the location I want you to take a look at this Google Earth this is my guess it could be wrong but this is the best guess that I have based on the people I've I've talked to so far here's the map Jim was based at unicolite which is way south of the site here they they actually were closer to the little town of of uh Shaka tulik and the key thing here is that it's on the shukatulak river if you follow the shekatula river Northeast you end up at this spot here which is exactly 35 miles Northeast of Shuka tulik on the river now the airplane does not land on the river flatbed or on the Gravel Bar it lands on this little site if you see this little place up here right here where the dot is this is kind of an East-West clearing I'm not sure Google Earth doesn't have it very clear it's about 2500 feet long it's about 30 feet up above the River Basin I'm not sure which direction they would have taken off but in any case they did not get clear off of this thing I think they were probably taking off to the West is my guess here but again I don't know the airplane did not have an engine failure it simply refused to gain altitude and flew into something and here it is in a 3D picture so you can kind of see the terrain a little bit better but that's really all that happened here the weather that morning was clear the weather was not a factor and the remaining person picked up the SAT phone he called Jim's wife immediately as soon as the crash happened that's the first call he made and then she alerted the authorities from there the Rescue Services were brought in out of Nome Alaska they brought in helicopters at least one maybe two to fly round trips back to the crash site to bring people in and out and all that kind of thing so that's what happened nobody else tried to land an airplane on this trip everything else after that was all done with helicopters the total distance from the southern airport here which was the airport of uniq elite up to the crash site was about 58 miles Technically from the little airport of shekatulik straight line distance was actually about 37 miles and the River Winds all the way around if you were to follow the river it's a very long trip but from uh from the base where Jim was based at down there at unicolite it was only about 58 miles so you can go on Google or Earth yourself do the cross of um 37 and 58 a total of 95 miles combined between those puts that dot right on the shekatulik river at the bend I know for sure the crash was on the north side of the river and in the woods it simply did not get altitude it did not have an engine problem and that's I'm I'm really sorry that the the circumstances I want to talk about the far involved in that there is a Federal Aviation regulation which allows people to go up over the max gross weight of the airplane I'm not sure how that's a good idea but here it is I'm going to read it to you far 912 323 increased maximum certificated weights for certain airplanes that operated in Alaska so this is basically for 135 and 121 people who want to app operate under special circumstances and get permission to operate 15 percent over I don't know that Jim's personal airplane November 91361 I don't know that he was a 135 airplane he might have been and he might have had permission to be that 15 over in any case Bernoulli wins it did not have enough aerodynamics and enough thrust and enough threat energy to get that airplane Airborne to climb out of wherever they were trying given the existing conditions and the existing load that they put in that airplane I think there was nothing more going on here than simply an overloaded airplane is my best guess at this time I want to leave this Memorial here at the end I am very sorry for this entire thing I want you to have the update as I have it I'm getting more information all the time and I appreciate those who spoke with me and took the time to call and email me and give me this information on where this place is it's all very very sketchy as of uh right now but I think that's going to be the best guess uh as to what happened up there we'll know more in a couple of weeks if the NTSB gives us any data off of their preliminary on the location and the crash site as it is once again our deepest respects and condolences to both of these families [Music] when we've been there 10 000 years bright shining as the sun we've no less days to sing God's praise than when we first begun [Music] foreign foreign [Music]

Channel: Probable Cause: Dan Gryder

Views: 101,263

Keywords: Jim Tweto, Ariel Tweto, Flying Wild Alaska, Shane Reynolds, Plane Crash, Alaska Plane Crash, star of flying wild alaska, dead in plane crash, dies in plane crash, discovery channel, bush pilot, bush pilot jim tweto, idaho guide

Id: Q-g-rXcXu-0

Length: 8min 16sec (496 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 20 2023