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replied, "At 5,000 feet, in the soup, boy I am really in it. Radar will have to get me down."
This was the last radio contact between McGrath radio and the Beech, and at this time Tatalina lost radar contact with the aircraft. McGrath attempted repeatedly to reestablish contact without success.
The Beechcraft wreckage was located on September 2, 1959, at 0742 by Air Force Search and Rescue aircraft 26 miles north-northwest of McGrath at the approximate location the aircraft had disappeared from the Tatalina radarscopes. The aircraft wreckage was confined to a small area. At the time of impact the nose was down sharply; the right wing was down appreciably; the direction of impact was 227 degrees magnetic. Propeller pitch setting, power settings, and other information needed to reconstruct the final few seconds of flight were not determinable. Owing to severity of impact it was not possible to learn if there had been a malfunction of any component prior to impact, although all major components were accounted for at the crash site which was at an elevation of 1,800 feet above sea level.
As the aircraft had not been refueled at either Kiana or Tanana, the entire flight from Kotzebue to the accident site had been made on 206 gallons of fuel. The total flight time from Kotzebue to Tanana to the accident site was five hours and 36 minutes.
Investigation disclosed the following relative to weather conditions: Between Tanana and McGrath, during the period from 1900 to 2300, there were broken to overcast cloud layers based at 3,000 to 4,000 feet above mean sea level along the entire route. There were also patches of broken stratus occasionally forming near 1,500 feet. Visibility was at least ten miles except when briefly restricted to two miles in very light rain or drizzle. The tops of the cloud layers were at 14,000 feet above mean sea level over Tanana, sloping to 6,500 over McGrath. The freezing level was at 5,000 feet above mean sea level over Tanana, sloping to 3,500 feet over McGrath.
Surface winds along the route were westerly of less than five knots, becoming northwesterly ten knots at 2,000 feet and northerly ten to 15 knots between 5,000 and 10,000 feet above mean sea level. Over the northern two-thirds of the route occasional light icing would have been experienced in the clouds above the freezing level to 11,000 feet. Turbulence was unlikely except for possible light turbulence near Tanana. Over the remainder of the route and in the McGrath area light icing was present in the clouds and in precipitation above the freezing level.
A very light rain began to fall at McGrath at 2100 and approximately 15 minutes before the accident the observation at McGrath gave a measured ceiling of 4,000 feet, overcast; visibility 20 miles plus, very light rain. Cloud heights at the U. S. Weather Bureau station at McGrath are measured by means of a fixed-beam celiometer.
Pilot Priest had more than 100 hours experience flying this model aircraft and had approximately 6,500 hours of total pilot time, much of it over Alaskan wilderness. He held a commercial pilot certificate with multiengine land and
