Summary based on the NamUs case record (MP81042)
Robert R. Johnson was a 54-year-old white man who was last seen on September 30, 1974, after departing Anchorage, Alaska, aboard a Grumman G-73 Mallard amphibious aircraft bound for Kodiak. The plane, registration N2965, was white with red trim and carried Johnson and three other men: Jay Larry Haddock, Robert Bergman, and Leonard Boughton. Johnson was described as approximately 5 feet 10 inches tall and 175 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes.
Public memorial information identifies him as a pilot with the Bureau of Land Management’s Division of Aircraft Services who disappeared while on duty over the Gulf of Alaska, placing his final flight within the demanding and often hazardous environment of Alaskan aviation.
The aircraft left Anchorage on what aviation records describe as a seabird survey flight to Kodiak. The Grumman Mallard was a twin-engine amphibious aircraft capable of operating from both conventional runways and water, a useful feature for work across Alaska’s remote coastal regions. Records identify N2965 as a 1947 aircraft with four people aboard—one crew member and three passengers. During the flight across the North Pacific and Gulf of Alaska region, the aircraft failed to reach Kodiak and was reported overdue. No distress call was received, leaving search personnel without a confirmed emergency location, an account of what had happened, or a reliable final position from which to begin tracing the plane’s path.
An extensive search-and-rescue effort followed the disappearance. Search crews faced an immense area of ocean, isolated coastline, islands, mountains, and rapidly changing weather between Anchorage and Kodiak. Despite the effort devoted to finding the aircraft, no trace of N2965 or any of the four men was located. The search was eventually suspended after several days without the discovery of wreckage, debris, or the occupants. Because the aircraft was never recovered, investigators could not examine its engines, controls, structure, instruments, or communications equipment, and no definitive cause for the loss could be established. Aviation records describe the airplane as having been lost without trace in the sea, but the absence of recoverable physical evidence means the exact sequence of events aboard the flight remains unknown.
Johnson’s disappearance has endured for more than half a century without the answers that his loved ones and the families of the other men deserved. His missing-person record remains associated with the Alaska State Troopers and the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System under case MP81042. The Public Lands Foundation also memorializes Robert R. Johnson as a Bureau of Land Management pilot who vanished over the Gulf of Alaska while carrying out his duties, preserving a personal and professional remembrance beyond the sparse facts of the aviation record. At its heart, the case is the story of a 54-year-old pilot and three companions who left Anchorage for Kodiak on September 30, 1974, disappeared during a survey flight, and became the subjects of an extensive but unsuccessful search. With neither the Grumman Mallard nor its occupants ever recovered, the disappearance remains an unresolved and deeply sorrowful chapter in Alaska’s aviation and missing-person history.Last Seen: Sep 30, 1974
