On the evening of January 29, 2019, Margaret Langston, a 43-year-old flight paramedic from Juneau, Alaska, boarded a Guardian Flight medical aircraft. She was part of a three-person crew, including 63-year-old pilot Patrick Coyle and 30-year-old flight nurse Stacie Rae Morse. Their mission was to fly from Anchorage to the small community of Kake to pick up a patient in need of transport.
The twin-engine King Air 200 plane, tail number N13LY, was expected to land in Kake at 6:19 p.m., but it never arrived. The last known coordinates placed the aircraft over Frederick Sound as it was on approach to the Kake airport.
The disappearance of the aircraft triggered an extensive search and rescue operation in the waters of Frederick Sound. The U.S. Coast Guard, along with Alaska State Troopers, local search and rescue teams from Kake and Petersburg, and good Samaritan vessels, combed the area near the plane's last known position. Soon after the search began, debris believed to be from a plane was found in the water approximately 22 miles west of Kake. The search eventually transitioned to a recovery effort, and in the following months, most of the aircraft's wreckage was located on the ocean floor, in about 500 feet of water, spread over a large debris field. Despite the exhaustive search efforts by both government agencies and private contractors, the remains of Margaret Langston, Patrick Coyle, and Stacie Morse were never recovered.
The National Transportation Safety Board conducted a thorough investigation into the crash, but the exact cause remains undetermined. The final report concluded that there was a 'loss of control for reasons that could not be determined based on the available information'. Radar data showed the plane entered a rapid descent, plummeting 2,575 feet in just 14 seconds before it disappeared. Hopes for answers were diminished when the recovered cockpit voice recorder was found to have been inoperative since 2015. The loss of the three dedicated crew members, including nurse Stacie Morse who was 27 weeks pregnant, was a profound tragedy for their families and the close-knit community of Juneau. The case remains a sorrowful mystery, an aviation accident that claimed the lives of three heroes on a mission to help others, leaving their loved ones without definitive answers.Last Seen: Jan 29, 2019
