The air was clear and smooth over the Lynn Canal between Juneau and Haines on Thursday, so there was no need to use the new technology installed in the Cessna Grand Caravan’s instrument panel. But when the clouds roll in, as they are forecasted to do next week, the updated avionics will allow pilots to fly this common route through conditions that could typically ground passengers, mail and cargo.
“We put all this in place and then we have had just gorgeous weather,” said Alaska Seaplanes’ Marketing Manager Andy Kline with a laugh.
The company has developed new approach paths and installed GPS equipment to make low visibility flights safer and more reliable.
For people who live in communities like Haines, with no jet or road access, travel in and out is mitigated by the weather and the ferry schedule. The comings and goings of the state’s ferries are so critical that they are announced on the radio with the weather. Locals typically build an extra night into their travel plans to account for canceled flights. “If you want to get there, take the ferry,” is a well-worn piece of travel advice that long-time residents dole out to newcomers.
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“We have a goal of being as reliable as the jet,” Kline said of the small plane operator. “We’re not there yet. And even these new approaches don’t get us quite there yet. We’re still going to be on the ground sometimes when the jets are flying.”
Pilot Gregg Hake demonstrates how advanced GPS avionics allow pilots to program approach paths and fly in low visibility conditions on May 2, 2024.
To realize that goal, Alaska Seaplanes, the region’s most comprehensive carrier, has developed new approach paths and installed GPS equipment sensitive enough to allow instrument flights even in the challenging geography of the region. Haines, Hoonah, Sitka, Juneau, Kake, Wrangell and Petersburg flights will benefit from the upgrades, which were costly for the small carrier. Flight prices have gone up significantly in the last five years. A disadvantage for small companies is that they must go through the same approvals processes for new routes as major carriers, like Alaska Airlines, which is a time burden on the small staff.
Kline said it has already changed how often flights get out and the conditions travelers experience. “People who’ve flown to Hoonah have never flown through the clouds,’ he said. “So we’re actually having to brief our passengers before they get on board because people get really concerned.”
Most Southeast communities do not have airports with ground control and towers; they have airstrips. Pilots typically fly under a set of regulations designed around high visibility conditions, so they have lower thresholds for getting out in inclement weather. Instrument flights can be employed in low visibility conditions. They rely on GPS technology and Federal Aviation Administration approved flight paths. Seaplanes recently updated nearly all its wheeled aircraft — float planes were not part of the change — and just had its new flight paths approved for use.
A new approach years in the making
Alaska Seaplanes Assistant Chief Pilot Gregg Hake helped explain the changes at a community meeting on Thursday at the Haines library. The route between Juneau and Haines is one of the primary runs out of Juneau.
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“How many of you have had a flight canceled?” he asked the crowd.
The room erupted in laughter as every hand went up. “Trick question!” called out former mayor Jan Hill.
Hake said in the week after the upgrades, he flew four flights using instruments that would have otherwise been canceled or delayed.
Flights that use what is called IFR, or instrument flight rules, technology are not new, but the sensitivity of the new equipment and the paths it allows the planes to take are new. Federal approvals took years.
“When you don’t have visual recognition in the clouds, it’s flying you on a very specific approach that keeps you away from mountains and keeps you at the right altitude and all those things,” Hake explained.
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An Alaska Seaplanes cargo truck pulls up to one of the company’s aircraft in Haines on May 2, 2024. Cargo and mail flights are are also susceptible to weather disruptions, which can leave communities like Haines waiting on letters and parcels for days or weeks. (Photo by Claire Stremple/Alaska Beacon)
Water and mountains complicate the flight paths in Southeast Alaska. Cooperation is involved, too. Ground control is in Juneau, but the airspace over Haines and much of Southeast Alaska is controlled by a tower in Anchorage.
“The legendary status of Alaska as being a difficult place to fly in comes particularly true here,” he said. “We’re flying between mountains that come straight up out of the water, which complicates things like radio communication, complicates things like GPS reception.”
Hake said pilots are not able to use very many land-based navigational devices because the mountains block the transmission to the airplane.
There are other variables, too. He said magnetism from iron in the Chilkat mountain range can throw a compass 20 degrees off north. Luckily, that does not affect satellite navigation systems.
High visibility is a perk on a flight over seemingly endless icefields and glacier-carved fjords whose silt marbles the deep jade color of the water. But, for people who live here, the option to fly safely in marginal weather is important.
Puppies that will work as sled dogs for the glacier tour in Skagway are briefly unloaded in Haines after a flight from Skagway. They were ultimately en route to Juneau for socialization, on an Alaska Seaplanes flight. (Photo by Claire Stremple/Alaska Beacon)
By Alaska Division of Forestry & Fire Protectionon
The Starry fire picked up today and the Fairbanks Area initial attack helicopter dropped buckets of water during the heat of the day.
Despite the brief uptick in fire activity, the fire remained at 575 acres and resources were able to get hose completely around the fire.
Pioneer Peak Hotshots Forrest Boynton and Trapper Gephart, cut saw line around the west side of the Starry Fire. – Sam Allen, DFFP
Crews on the East and South side off the fire swept 200 foot outside of the fire’s edge, and found no heats. A grid is planned for tomorrow on the North side of the fire.
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The City of Anderson is still at evacuation level, “Go.”
The Denali Borough has issued a ‘Ready’ evacuation order for “North 40” further west and across the Nenana River from Anderson, Alaska because of two other wildland fires in the wider area. The “North 40” includes residents north of Lightning Avenue and between the Teklanika River and the Nenana River.
The Type 3 Incident Management Team running the Starry Fire is prepared and planning to take on other wildfires in the area should it become necessary to engage.
‘Ready’ is the first step in the “Ready. Set. Go.” Statewide evacuation planning. Residents are encouraged to prepare necessary items such as pets, medication and important documents and monitor evacuation updates.
Firefighters completed a dozer line around the fire yesterday, they were helped in part by a burn scar from the 2013 Clear Air Force Base Fire, which helped slow the fire down.
Firefighters from Elmendorf Air Force Base helped secure a two-acre slop-over on the south side of the Starry Fire. – Sam Allen, DFFP
“The dozer line is not a scalpel,” Pioneer Peak Hotshot Sup. Kris Baumgartner. Fire activity could pick up and through embers across the line.
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Two federal contract crews, Moose Heart and Clearwater, are expected to arrive Tuesday.
‹ DFFP responding to a new fire east of Delta
Categories: Active Wildland Fire, AK Fire Info, Alaska DNR – Division of Forestry & Fire Protection (DFFP)
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A Coast Guard search and rescue helicopter crashed Monday morning during a training flight in Alaska.
A Coast Guard MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter had four people onboard when it went down near Harbor Mountain in Sitka, a town in the Alexander Archipelago in southern Alaska several dozen miles south of Juneau. The Jayhawk and its aircrew are assigned to Coast Guard Air Station Sitka.
The crash happened Monday morning at around 10:07 a.m. local time, the Coast Guard said. It took nearly an hour for rescue crews to arrive on the scene. Rescue. However, no serious injuries were reported, a spokesperson for the Coast Guard Arctic District told Task & Purpose. All four crew members were taken by Sitka Fire and Rescue teams to Mt. Edgecumbe Medical Center in Sitka.
The cause of the crash isn’t known, and in a post on X, the Coast Guard Arctic District said that a “formal investigation will be conducted to determine the circumstances surrounding the event.”
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The Coast Guard Arctic District covers not only Alaska but the waters around it, including the Prince William Sound and waters in the Pacific.
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Given Alaska’s remote conditions, local and military aircraft are often used to provide emergency search and rescue operations. Both the Coast Guard and National Guard regularly dispatch helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft to help people stranded or in crisis at sea.
In April, helicopters from Coast Guard Air Station Sitka and the National Guard conducted a mass casualty drill near the town, as part of what the Coast Guard called “a large joint exercise involving multiple government agencies and local organizations.”
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Maureen Longworth and Lin Davis smile for a photo at their home on Douglas Island on Thursday, June 18, 2026. (Photo by Clarise Larson/KTOO)
It’s Pride Month and Juneau joins other communities nationwide in celebrating LGBTQ+ people.
One couple in Juneau, Maureen Longworth and Lin Davis, have dedicated their lives to advocating for LGBTQ+ rights. They met on a late-night dog walk at the Oakland Rose Garden in California in 1987. That was nearly 40 years ago, though Longworth remembers it clear as day.
“I had just gotten off work and was walking my dog, but it was like near midnight, I think, and bumped into Lin walking her dogs,” Longworth said.
A lot has happened since that first walk. The pair moved to Juneau in 1992 and now live on Douglas Island, retired with their dog, Reilly Wryly Raven. It’s been more than two decades since the pair joined a lawsuit that would change LGBTQ+ rights for state and municipal workers in Alaska.
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It started because Longworth needed intensive dental work, and her employer wouldn’t cover it. Davis worked for the state’s Department of Labor and Workforce Development at the time, where straight married people could share employment benefits – like health insurance – with their partners.
Davis was denied the same benefits for her partner.
“We had to pay for it out of pocket, but my coworkers out at the Department of Labor and Workforce Development, they would have automatically had their marriage partners covered,” she said.
The women couldn’t legally get married in Alaska back then — Alaska was actually the first state to ban gay marriage through a constitutional amendment in 1998. And, though they’d gotten married in other states and held a ceremony with friends and family, it wasn’t recognized by Alaska.
So, in 1999, they, alongside eight other gay and lesbian couples and the Alaska Civil Liberties Union, sued the state government and the Municipality of Anchorage.
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The lawsuit demanded equal benefits for domestic partnerships. It was filed right after the state amended its constitution to define marriage as only between a man and a woman.
Longworth said it felt necessary to take a stance.
“There was no protection for people to take care of their families,” she said.
In 2005 — six years later — they won. The Alaska Supreme Court ruled that denying spousal benefits for gay couples was an equal protection violation. It meant that local governments and the state were required to make employment benefits accessible to people in domestic partnerships.
It was unbelievable. We started screaming, and I was screaming at work, and telling all my coworkers,” Davis said.
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“You called me, and I was in the library garage downtown, and I just started crying. We just couldn’t even believe it,” Longworth said.
Since then, the pair have spent decades continuing to advocate for LGBTQ+ rights in Juneau and Alaska, even after Davis was diagnosed with leukemia a year and a half ago. They do that in part by unapologetically sharing their relationship with the world.
“We come out to people like six times a day, just sharing what this is, as wife and wife, going through a pretty fatal diagnosis,” Davis said.
Davis said fighting for LGBTQ+ rights opened the door for them to live their lives openly and joyfully.
“In Hamlet, there’s that line, ‘to thine own self be true.’ So that’s what we’re all about. To thine own self be true,” she said. “Go forward, be brave. You may have to be brave every day, but steady forward.”
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“You can see why I married her. Isn’t that the kind of person you’d want to live with?” Longworth said, laughing.
And they commend and appreciate the young LGBTQ+ people who are taking up the torch — to advocate for their community and live bravely.
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Firefighters from Elmendorf Air Force Base helped secure a two-acre slop-over on the south side of the Starry Fire. – Sam Allen, DFFP
