From a deadly helicopter crash to a spiritual quest gone sideways – plus a hunter who
got ambushed by a grizzly bear!
Welcome to Alaska gone wrong!
10: Helicopter Disaster Something that's getting very popular to do
in Alaska is heliskiing.
This is when you go skiing down the side of a mountain with the help of a helicopter.
Now, that doesn’t sound dangerous at all, right?
You’d gladly give it a shot, wouldn’t you?
I mean really, what could possibly go wrong?
What went wrong is that on March 27, 2021, a helicopter carrying one of the wealthiest
men in the world – Petr Kellner – crashed in the Chugach Mountains of Alaska.
The crash left five people dead and one hospitalized, and it has since been labeled the deadliest
heliskiing aviation accident in the history of North America.
The helicopter had been on the last run of the day.
Nobody knows why exactly the accident occurred, but we do know that the last fatal heliskiing
accident was in 1994 in Nevada and was caused by mechanical failure.
This latest disaster is so fresh that we haven't even seen the flight records just yet.
In any case, whether you’re hiking or heliskiing, Alaska can be a very dangerous place.
Getting inside of a helicopter and then jumping out of it to rush down the side of a frozen
mountain on a pair of flat stilts is honestly just asking for trouble!
9: The Spiritual Quest Remember, Alaska isn’t just dangerous by
air.
A long stroll could end up deadly!
In August of 2018, a man wandered 14 miles (22km) into a valley on the west side of Hatcher
Pass.
He barely carried anything with him.
He didn't have a rifle or bear spray to protect himself, and he only had about 5 pounds of
oatmeal to keep him alive.
But that was OK, as the man's plan was to stay in a small cabin for several months while
trying to find the meaning of life.
His name was Vladimir Kostenko, and he was on a spiritual quest.
Well, this spiritual quest was a huge failure.
Vladimir wanted to find his purpose on earth, and what he found instead was likely a slow,
cold, and miserable death.
Vladimir was borrowing the cabin from a friend.
After a few months, Vladimir stopped sending messages from his cellphone back to his friend.
The friend got worried and hired a helicopter to take him out to the wilderness cabin, where
he found it locked and empty.
There was no sign of Vladimir, the cabin had been cleaned up nicely, and Vladimir had even
nailed it shut before leaving.
Nobody knows what happened to Vladimir.
He probably tried walking from the cabin back to civilization, ended up getting lost, and
then had a very bad time freezing to death in the wilderness.
It has been over two years since Vladimir went on a spiritual quest and he has yet to
be seen.
8: Garbage Truck Gone Wrong In Alaska, something as simple as taking out
the trash can prove fatal.
An employee of Blue Arctic Waste was recently trying to empty the trash can in front of
someone’s house in Anchorage when he was run over by his own garbage truck.
This person’s name was Robin E. Hager and he was 62 years old.
It was a Thursday morning according to the Anchorage Police Department when authorities
were called to the 5200 block of Caribou Avenue at around 7:00 in the morning.
The initial investigation proved that Robin had pulled up to the residence in his garbage
truck, he was getting ready to empty the trash cans, and then after lowering the arm of the
truck, the arm was unable to lift the garbage can because it was literally frozen to the
icy ground.
Robin got out of his truck and tried to get the trash can off the ground.
The truck slid on the ice, the extended arm knocked Robin over, and he was crushed underneath
his very own garbage truck.
Sadly, Robin didn’t make it.
This is one of those one-in-a-million accidents that can only happen in Alaska!
Wouldn’t you rather live somewhere warm where these types of things don’t happen?
7: Hunter Becomes the Hunted A man from Ohio was recently mauled to death
by a grizzly bear in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve in what authorities have
called a surprise attack.
According to NBC News, this was the first known fatal bear attack to ever happen in
this Alaska national park since it was established in 1980.
The park covers at least 13 million acres, bordering Canada’s Yukon Territory.
According to Jan Maslen, the park spokeswoman, the Ohio man and his hunting partner killed
a moose early on a Saturday evening and went back later to salvage the meat.
One of the hunters took a load of meat back to camp while the other stayed behind to prepare
a second load.
That was when the guy transporting the meat was charged by a hungry and rather upset bear.
In short, the bear ambushed him.
The man managed to fire off a shot and scare the bear away.
Unknown to him, he scared the bear straight towards his friend!
While the second man prepared the meat, the bear attacked.
He didn't have a gun handy and so the bear mauled him, chewed him up a little bit, and
left him for dead!
Imagine that, a hunter without a gun!
I don’t know about you, but if I were deep in a wild national park in Alaska full of
bears, I’d make sure to have a weapon on me at all times!
6: Kayaking Gone Wrong Even kayaking can prove deadly in Alaska.
The unpredictable ice cold waters mean that if you make one mistake, it could be your
last!
Three kayakers were recently found floating in the water near the Valdez Glacier.
Authorities in Alaska were investigating the deaths of the kayakers after an unnamed caller
discovered their bodies just kind of bobbing in the water.
Nobody at the time could figure out what exactly happened to the kayakers, and the authorities
were even having a difficult time identifying them.
Plus, the shedding ice of the nearby glacier made it difficult for rescue responders to
even reach the bodies.
The police were quick to rule out foul play, but what happened to the kayakers is still
a mystery.
It’s hard to imagine they all fell out of the kayak at once and froze to death.
But this is just one of those things that happens when you vanish into the Alaskan wilderness
– where no one can hear you scream!
5: Deadly Plane Crash Plane crashes are way too common in Alaska.
The weather can get unfriendly without warning, and the small airplanes up there are more
susceptible to accidents.
Would you ever fly on an airplane in northern Alaska?
Maybe you’ll reconsider after hearing this story.
A commuter airplane recently fell out of the sky and crashed near a small airport near
an Alaskan community on the Bering Sea.
The commuter plane was carrying 42 people at the time, including a high school swimming
team.
The plane went off the runway while trying to land, critically injuring two of the passengers
and causing at least ten others to receive medical attention.
Luckily in this case, all the students were completely fine.
There were no deaths, though the swim team was definitely shaken up.
The crash took place near Unalaska, where Dutch Harbor is located, one of the busiest
fishing ports in all of the United States.
The flight itself was operated by Peninsula Airways.
It was probably forced to make the sketchy landing because of high winds.
Have you ever been on an airplane that was knocked around severely by wild weather?
What happened?
Did it lose power for a second?
Did you free fall at all?
Tell me your story in the comments section below.
Then remember to subscribe to American Eye if you haven’t already right away!
4: The 1964 Alaska Earthquake One of the biggest things to ever go wrong
in Alaska was back in 1964.
This was the year that the strongest earthquake ever recorded in the United States or Canada
struck Prince William Sound, about 74 miles (110km) from Anchorage.
Almost every resident of Alaska felt the power of the 9.2-magnitude earthquake.
It was so strong that it wobbled the Space Needle in Seattle over 1200 miles (1800km)
away.
In fact, the earthquake was so great that it registered in every single state except
for Connecticut, Delaware, and Rhode Island.
The 1964 Alaska earthquake happened at 5:36 PM on March 27, 1964.
It was Good Friday.
According to History.com, sewer and gas lines broke, there were telephone and electrical
failures all across Alaska, and some eyewitnesses described seeing asphalt roads bending like
waves as the earthquake literally rippled the surface of the earth.
Buildings were uprooted, cars were flipped on their sides, and entire homes were ripped
asunder.
The earthquake was so strong that the earth rang like a bell.
And of course, no earthquake is complete without a devastating tsunami, a couple of landslides,
and parts of the land being dumped into the sea.
In the end, 131 people died and Alaska was placed in history as the location of this
monumental natural disaster!
3: The Biggest Tsunami If you thought the 1964 earthquake was bad,
just wait until you hear about the tsunami from 1958.
The tsunami was the tallest ever recorded in human history.
We're all familiar with what happens when you get hit by a 5-foot (1.5m) wave on the
beach.
It can knock a person over easily.
But the wave that smashed into Lituya Bay on July 9 was 1720 feet (530m) tall.
The tsunami was so big that if it had hit New York City, it likely would have knocked
over every last building, flooded every single subway system, and drowned every last person.
Luckily for the residents of Lituya Bay, the tsunami didn’t hit their town.
It also wasn’t directly caused by an earthquake.
A small earthquake caused about 40 million cubic yards of rock above the shore of Lituya
Bay to become loose and fall into the water.
This enormous quantity of rock fell 3000 feet (900m) into the Gilbert Inlet and created
the wave.
This is what we call a local tsunami.
The wave was generated quickly, it rose over 1700 feet (530m) above sea level and wiped
all trees and vegetation from the nearby cliffs, smashed into a few boats, and then was over.
If there had been a surfer there to surf that wave, they would have broken the world record.
And probably a few bones, as well!
2: Fairbanks Bus 142 Fairbanks bus 142 is known by many names.
Some call it the “Into the Wild Bus,” some call it just “The Bus.”
Whatever you call it, the bus is famous for many cases of Alaska gone wrong.
This is because the bus sat undisturbed for 60 years in a woody clearing near a riverbank.
It was a symbol for Alaskan outback life and those seeking adventure in the last frontier.
It became famous after Christopher McCandless died inside while trying to live off the land.
Christopher became stranded because of an impassable river, he fell sick, then died
of starvation.
This guy's story was made into a bestselling book and later on a film.
And these ended up being the inspiration for a lot of people seeking out the bus in the
Alaskan wilderness.
But most of these trips went terribly wrong.
Visitors ended up getting stuck, they got injured, they suffered hypothermia, and sometimes
they died.
A tourist died trying to cross the river to reach the bus in 2010, and another died just
a few years ago after getting swept away in the very river that trapped Christopher McCandless
on the other side.
In lieu of all these unfortunate trips gone wrong, the government stepped in and took
the bus out.
It was airlifted from the area in 2020, officially ruining everyone’s dreams of visiting the
famous bus and maybe even getting swept away in an angry river.
1: The Alaskan Triangle Since 1988, a desolate expanse of nothingness
in Alaska has claimed the lives of about 16,000 visitors.
This is known as the Alaska Triangle.
It's a vast region of untouched wilderness, rich with icy mountains and empty tundra.
To this day, nobody has any idea why this remote and unexplored place is so dangerous
or why so many people’s trips into the area go horribly, horribly wrong.
In fact, nobody can find a scientific explanation for why 16,000 people have vanished into thin
air here.
Nobody's sure if it’s all a big coincidence or if something terrifying is lurking out
there in the Alaska Triangle.
All we know for sure is that one out of every 250 people who have ever entered the Alaska
Triangle have gone missing, never to be found.
But it's not only the Alaska Triangle that is terrifying.
According to Strange Outdoors, anywhere between 500 and 2000 people go missing in Alaska every
single year and are never seen from again.
This is despite hundreds and hundreds of rescue missions being launched by the authorities.
We don’t know what’s going on in Alaska, but if you’re planning a trip into the wilderness,
you’d better have your affairs in order!
Have you ever had trouble in Alaska?
If so, write about it in the comments!
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