Four Americans are dead after a small plane went down in coastal Alaska Wednesday — and the national press sprinted to cover it, the same outlets that can't be bothered to track the daily violence and policy failures devastating communities across the country.
A Piper PA-24-260 crashed into roughly 15 feet of water in the Seldovia Slough near the shore, killing all four adults aboard, according to the Alaska Department of Public Safety. The aircraft had taken off from Anchorage's Merrill Field Airport around 1:18 p.m. bound for Seldovia, a town about 136 miles southwest. Alaska State Troopers couldn't reach the wreckage until the tide went out at 6:30 p.m. The victims' names are being withheld until next of kin are notified. The NTSB is investigating, and a cause remains unclear.
This is the second fatal plane crash in Alaska in a single week. Last week, a Cessna at a remote military site in western Alaska killed all eight people on board. According to the New York Post, those pilots were flying solely by instruments in heavy fog, struggling to see the gravel airstrip. Regulations required them to abort their first landing attempt due to visibility. They crashed on the second attempt, about a third of a mile from the runway.
Two crashes. Twelve dead. And Alaska Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan posted on Facebook that he'll be getting a briefing from the NTSB and FAA, calling the tragedies "heartbreaking and unacceptable" and saying aviation safety and infrastructure in Alaska "continue to be a top focus." CNN gave Sullivan's statement oxygen; the Post didn't mention it at all.
"Unacceptable" is a word politicians deploy when they need to appear concerned without committing to consequences. Sullivan has been in the Senate since 2015. Alaska's aviation infrastructure has been a known hazard for years. The question isn't what he'll hear in a briefing — it's what he's already heard and failed to act on.
Both outlets covered the crash straight. Neither asked the obvious follow-up: what is the FAA's safety record in Alaska, who's been held accountable for past failures, and how many more Americans have to die before something changes? The Post at least noted the prior crash and its circumstances. CNN gave Sullivan his platform without scrutiny.
Meanwhile, the press chooses its disasters carefully. A plane crash in Alaska gets wall-to-wall coverage. The slow-motion disasters — fentanyl deaths, veterans sleeping under bridges, communities hollowed out by trade policy — get a paragraph on page twelve if they get anything at all. The referee is the story, and the referee is picking sides.
Twelve dead in two Alaska crashes in a week. A senator says it's unacceptable. The NTSB is investigating. We've heard all of this before. The open question is whether anyone in power will answer for it — or if this just gets filed away until the next one.
