In the vast and often unforgiving landscape of Alaska, the story of Alan Gabriel Foster's disappearance is a poignant reminder of the mysteries the wilderness can hold. On September 10, 2013, the 47-year-old pilot embarked on what should have been a routine flight from Yakutat to Anchorage. An experienced airman with over 9,000 hours of flight time, Foster was piloting his recently purchased blue and white Piper PA-32, tail number N3705W, on the final leg of a cross-country journey that began in Atlanta. He was well-acquainted with the challenges of flying in Alaska, having worked as a commercial and medevac pilot across the state, from the North Slope to Bethel and Dillingham. After refueling in Yakutat, a community he was familiar with, he took off, charting a course for home.
The circumstances surrounding Alan Foster's last known moments are both specific and chilling. Shortly after his departure from Yakutat around 3:30 p.m., he contacted the Juneau flight service for a weather update, indicating he had a contingency plan to land in Cordova if the conditions worsened. Approximately eighteen minutes into the flight, radar registered a transponder target identified as Foster's plane at an altitude of 1,100 feet. This last position placed him about 45 miles west of Yakutat, in the vicinity of the immense and remote Malaspina Glacier. After this final radar contact, both Alan Foster and his aircraft vanished without a trace, leaving a void of information and a family waiting for answers. His mother reported him overdue later that evening when he failed to arrive in Anchorage.
The search for Alan Foster was immediate and extensive, yet ultimately met with heartbreaking results. The Air Force, Coast Guard, and Civil Air Patrol all participated, deploying C-130 aircraft and H-60 helicopters to scour the area of his last known position. However, the search efforts were significantly hampered by several factors. Poor weather conditions in the rugged terrain of the Malaspina Glacier region made consistent searching difficult. Compounding the challenge was the fact that Foster's aircraft was not equipped with a registered emergency locator transmitter which drastically expanded the potential search area by hundreds of square miles. Despite exhaustive grid searches over the vast and treacherous landscape, no wreckage, emergency beacon signals, or any sign of the missing pilot and his plane were ever discovered. The official search was eventually called off, leaving the disappearance of Alan Gabriel Foster as one of Alaska's profound and unsolved aviation mysteries.
Last Seen: Sep 10, 2013
