A woman who lives in a remote region of Alaska where the consumption or possession of alcohol is banned has been arrested after getting drunk on an Alaska Airlines flight to the state’s most populous city, Anchorage, and lashing out at her husband.
Caryn Evan, 38, from the small, remote Alaskan village of Chefornak in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, was arrested on Tuesday night on suspicion of interference with flight crew after Alaska Airlines flight AS46 landed in Anchorage.
Evan and her husband had traveled from Chefornak to Bethel to catch the flight to Anchorage and, once in Bethel Airport, had taken advantage of the city’s more lax alcohol rules and consumed two or three drinks prior to boarding the flight.
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An off-duty police officer noticed Evan in Bethel Airport because she seemed “very intoxicated” and aggressive and kept bumping into people.
Despite her behavior, however, Evan was allowed to board the flight, and once in the air, she had one or two more alcoholic drinks during the approximately one-hour flight.
As the plane was making its initial descent to land and the flight attendants started to prepare the cabin for arrival, they were alerted by other passengers to Evan acting erratically towards her husband.
Evan’s husband told FBI investigators that he believes her behavior quickly deteriorated when she gulped down the rest of her drink because the flight was coming to an end.
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At that point, she started shouting incoherently and striking her husband. The flight attendants managed to deescalate the situation by moving her husband to the back of the plane but not long after, Evan was witnessed “moving uncontrollably, flailing about and interfering with passengers around her.”
According to a criminal complaint, a nurse volunteered to sit by Evan for the remainder of the flight, but upon landing, flight attendants had to intervene when Evan started to hit her head against the seat in front.
The flight attendants decided to place Evan’s hands in flexcuffs, at which point she calmed down, and once the plane arrived at the gate, law enforcement took her into custody.
Perhaps stating the obvious, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Alaska says that “alcohol was allegedly a factor in Evan’s conduct.”
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Chefornak is a village of around 450 people where the possession, consumption, and importation of alcohol are strictly prohibited. Despite these measures, however, the town still faces issues with illegal alcohol importation.
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Mateusz Maszczynski
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Mateusz Maszczynski honed his skills as an international flight attendant at the most prominent airline in the Middle East and has been flying ever since… most recently for a well known European airline. Matt is passionate about the aviation industry and has become an expert in passenger experience and human-centric stories. Always keeping an ear close to the ground, Matt’s industry insights, analysis and news coverage is frequently relied upon by some of the biggest names in journalism.
An Alaska Air National Guard HH-60W Jolly Green II helicopter, assigned to the 210th Rescue Squadron, 176th Wing, returns to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, after conducting a rescue mission for an injured snowmachiner, Feb. 21, 2026. The mission marked the first time the AKANG used the HH-60W for a rescue. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Staff Sgt. Joseph Moon)
JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska – Alaska Air National Guard personnel conducted a rescue mission Saturday, Feb. 21, after receiving a request for assistance from the Alaska State Troopers through the Alaska Rescue Coordination Center.
The mission was initiated to recover an injured snowmachiner in the Cooper Landing area, approximately 60 air miles south of Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. The Alaska Air National Guard accepted the mission, located the individual, and transported them to Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage for further medical care.
The mission marked the first search and rescue operation conducted by the 210th Rescue Squadron using the HH-60W Jolly Green II, the Air Force’s newest combat rescue helicopter, which is replacing the older HH-60G Pave Hawk. Guardian Angels assigned to the 212th Rescue Squadron were also aboard the aircraft and assisted in the recovery of the injured individual.
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Good Samaritans, who were on the ground at the accident site, deployed a signal flare, that helped the helicopter crew visually locate the injured individual in the heavily wooded area. Due to the mountainous terrain, dense tree cover, and deep snow in the area, the helicopter was unable to land near the patient. The aircrew conducted a hoist insertion and extraction of the Guardian Angels and the injured snowmachiner. The patient was extracted using a rescue strop and hoisted into the aircraft.
The Alaska Air National Guard routinely conducts search and rescue operations across the state in support of civil authorities, providing life-saving assistance in some of the most remote and challenging environments in the world.
cooper landing, guard, injured, jolly-green, rescue, snowmachiner
A trapper fresh out of the Cosna River country in Interior Alaska said he can’t believe how many martens he had caught in a small area so far this winter.
Friends are talking about the house-cat size creatures visiting their wood piles and porches. Could this be a boom in the number of these handsome woodland creatures?
Probably, said wildlife education specialist Mike Taras of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Fairbanks.
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“When I was out in the (White Mountains National Recreation Area north of Fairbanks) a couple of weeks ago, I saw marten tracks everywhere,” he said. “My friend had a hare bound close towards him while he was out near Wolf Run cabin and then a marten came loping after the hare hot on its trail.”
The biologist and tracking expert doesn’t even have to leave home to see signs of marten this spring.
“I currently have a marten coming by my place at the edge of (Creamer’s Field Migratory Waterfowl Refuge) about once a week. It is great to see her tracks — though it could be a juvenile male. I have noticed more marten tracks out on Creamer’s refuge in the past few years as well.”
The Cosna River area trapper, Steve O’Brien, said he thought “more mice” were a possible reason for marten abundance this year. Taras suspected the same.
“Research shows that the number one driver of marten populations is vole numbers,” Taras said. “But I don’t think there is concrete evidence of high vole numbers this year.”
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But Taras has seen some circumstantial evidence recently.
“I have noticed multitudes of ventilation tunnel holes on top of the snow after these recent snowstorms,” Taras said. “That many holes on top of the snow shortly after the snow makes me think that there are a lot of voles out there.”
Whatever the cause for increased marten numbers, now is perhaps a good time to see these predators of the northern woods.
“One trapper aptly described them as walking stomachs,” Tom Paragi, a retired wildlife biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Fairbanks, told me 26 years ago. “They’re one of the easier animals to trap.”
Like other members of the weasel family, marten hunt and kill small animals, most often voles, though they sometimes eat snowshoe hares, young birds and blueberries.
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Marten feed on red squirrels in other parts of North America, but in Alaska biologists have seen marten sharing squirrels’ underground network of winter tunnels without killing them.
Marten aren’t afraid to tackle animals their own size, Paragi said. He once pieced together a marten drama evident by tracks left behind in the snow. He observed where a marten paused during its wandering after seeing a goshawk perched on a low tree limb.
He could tell by blood and other marks that the marten killed the goshawk, making a meal of a raptor that could have had the marten for lunch.
“They are fairly fearless,” Paragi said.
Marten are loners, roaming forests solo except for a few weeks during the breeding season. They seem to prefer mature conifer forests for birthing and raising young, and use hollow logs for dens.
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The marten is one of a few mammals able to delay part of its reproductive cycle. Marten mate in mid-summer when food is plentiful, but fertilized eggs within females don’t implant into the uterus wall until springtime, a phenomenon triggered by longer days. Marten kits are born in late March to mid-April. In August, the youngsters go their own ways, beginning solitary lives that can last up to 14 years.
Since the late 1970s, the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Geophysical Institute has provided this column free in cooperation with the UAF research community. Ned Rozell is a science writer for the Geophysical Institute. Portions of this story appeared in 2000.
