The federal investigation into the Nov. 4 crash of a private plane in Lynn Canal will be made more difficult by the fact that the plane was never found.
Mike Mackowiak of Haines was flying the Cessna 180 that went down on a Haines-bound flight from Juneau with Mackowiak’s wife Martha, son Nik and friend Victoria Hansen on board.
The four were able to make it ashore after Mackowiak landed the plane about 150 yards offshore the east side of Lynn Canal.
Shaun Williams, who is leading the investigation into the crash for the National Transportation Safety Board, said this week that an insurance company using submersible equipment was unable to locate the sunken plane.
“(Not having a plane) makes the investigation very complicated,” Williams said last week.
Typically, investigators make a detailed exam of a plane’s wreckage and engine following a crash. They lay out pieces of the plane and examine fractures and parts including fuel lines and electrical systems.
Without a plane, the agency will have to dig deep into the plane’s maintenance records and rely on interviews to determine what caused the craft to go down, Williams said. The disappearance of the plane won’t affect the timeline for completing the crash report, he said.
Reports are typically issued 10-12 months after incidents, Williams said.
The water depth at the accident location is 600-780 feet, according to the agency’s preliminary report.
Mackowiak’s plane left Juneau at 1:13 p.m. Another pilot in the area heard Mackowiak’s mayday and reported it to the Juneau airport. FAA’s Juneau flight station issued an alert notice at 2:48 p.m. and the crash survivors were discovered around 3 p.m.
Mackowiak told the NTSB that he put 38 gallons of fuel in the plane in Haines before leaving for Juneau, and fuel gauges showed his tanks more than three-fourths full. On the return trip to Haines, just north of Juneau’s Eagle Beach, both fuel gauges read empty. Mackowiak reported that he tapped on the gauges and they showed more than a quarter-tank full, and that he suspected an electrical malfunction.
A short time later, the plane’s engine lost all power. Mackowiak tried priming the engine – pumping fuel directly into the cylinders – but could not get the engine to fully start, he told investigators.
Mackowiak told investigators his typical fuel burn was 10-12 gallons per hour.
The airplane was equipped with a Continental Motors O-470 series engine, according to the preliminary report.
Contacted this week, Mackowiak said he had no other information about the crash and was waiting to see the conclusions of NTSB’s final report.