Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
From my Heart Media. This is Missing in Alaska, the
story of two congressmen who vanished in nineteen seventy two
and my quest to figure out what happened to them.
I'm your host John Wallzac. On October, right before I
(00:27):
flew back to Anchorage with Paul Decant, our supervising producer,
I placed an important call. Paul and I, along with
our captains Mark and Andy, had just visited the exact
spot in Poor Duchess where Bob Martinson found part of
assessment tale. Sometime around night. We all had follow up
questions for Bob. So I put my phone on speaker
(00:48):
and hey, Bob, I'm with Andy and Mark and so
so Bob. So they had a few questions, and I
figured before I left, um they know the area better,
that I would let them ask the questions. Is that okay, yeah,
I'm not looking at the map. I'm I'm driving, So
(01:11):
I mean anyway, go ahead, okay, so drive carefully boy? Yeah. Uh,
so our our questions. So we had gone into four
dutches and uh trying to help figure out a little
bit more of this lead of um where to look
(01:34):
and and then we also had some specific questions. One
of them. I guess we could start with that. Like,
so you were saying, do you remember the boat you
were saying on Yeah, I ended up owning that. That
was my dad's both the ocean wave ocean wave okay,
and so how how big is the ocean wave? It
(01:56):
was a thirty two footer, like one of those Charlie
Moore staying boats. Like, uh, I don't know if you
remember that if you were around when the George A
and the Shirley Age those kind of votes were around. Yes,
I know, I know, I know exactly what you're talking about.
So yeah, I had the same per minute. I helped
build that boat, and uh, it would have been that
(02:18):
point or maybe the one out from it that wherever
it was fairly clear beach. Yeah, it looks like a
really good scene set right the spot that you selected,
Like it looked like it's right at the end of
a nice scrape like you could. Yeah, yeah, that's um.
I don't remember which way we were hooking, but I
(02:41):
brought it up in the league, not very far from
the beach, and it was the hotel section. And like
I told John, it didn't have any growth on it
or anything. It looked fairly recent but when I called
troopers to report it, they said the numbers came real
close to what they were looking for for that crash.
(03:05):
So I think I remember putting it on a tender
because we were still fishing, you know, And it wasn't
like the days when you go back and forth it was.
It was when we were fishing all week long. Yeah,
you could look store it or anything. What I mean,
they want to take it up a huge part of
the back deck or how big? How big of a
chunk did you find? It was the whole upright tail section, um,
(03:30):
you know the part that sticks up. It was shredded,
like it was sheared off right at the right, at
the bottom of the upright and you know, big sharp
sharks of metal on it. And it had I don't
know if it had all the number or I recall
(03:51):
that they said it might have been one number off
for something, but they wanted to see it. And I
think it was red and white. And I also know
that my friend Mike Crawley, he died right near there,
crashing his plane into the cliff, but that was later.
I believe that he fished with Butch Johnson is um.
(04:15):
That might have been when he was fine. He was
spotting for him and Butch Johnson, and he was over
a big school inside of Constantine and he was losing
elevation because he was circling, and then he slammed into
a cliff and uh that plane was pretty much destroyed.
Not I don't know if it landed on the feature,
went in the water, but it wouldn't have been that plane,
(04:37):
I don't think. I think it was earlier than that
that I found it. So that area that we were
was at the right spot. Yeah, that's that's the right spot.
So when we had just um, these guys were asking us,
you know, who might have been around, might have been
in the search, And so we went and talked to
Terry Kennedy and he told us, I think of that
(04:59):
plane that you were talking about, the spot ter um
and uh he he had actually trained with the pilot
Don Johnson, had some interesting info was flying that very
day and had been contacted about the weather and some
other stuff. But UM, yeah, so that so we were
(05:20):
we were in the right area. It sounds like, UM, yeah,
I don't know, you know, I don't have any idea,
um exactly what year that was. But the crash happened
in seventy two, and it was probably around eighty one
somewhere maybe before that. I started saying in seventy three
(05:44):
with my dad, and I'm pretty sure I was with
my dad at that time, so it was prere I
would guess. You don't happen to remember that piece, did
it didn't ended up on a tender? And then any
chance of remembering the name of that tender, no, no,
(06:04):
But it took me a while to even think about,
you know, what happened to it. I knew somebody a minute.
I thought, well, it would have been a tender because
that's that's the only one's going back to town, right,
And uh, I don't know who the trooper was around
town then. I think it was before Jim Cavin was there.
(06:28):
Do you remember a guy named Bill Bagron or bag Roun. Yeah,
he was the police chief. Yeah, Yeah, I knew his daughter, Julie. Yeah,
he's he's since passed away. But I was trying to
find names of people who you might have talked to. Well,
(06:49):
I think I talked to the trooper's office, because you know,
pretty serious when you find a piece of the plane,
and they wanted they wanted to see it and we
had no way to bring it at that time without
you know, giving up our season. So what company did
you fish for? Were you fishing for a specific processor? Well, well,
(07:10):
we was fished for more pack, but I don't know
when more pack turned into coffey or seafoods, but that
was that would have been I mean that was well
after I got here, it was still more packed, so
I mean that would have been in the nineties at
some point. But um, well, I was just thinking if
(07:34):
some old timers, you know, or fishmonger um could remember
something about, oh yeah, I came in on a tender
and you know, and something of that nature. It was
so long ago that this happened. I can't possibly remember
which tender we had. Yeah, well the processor might remember.
(07:56):
If there's some old retiree that might remember who was
taking fish in that area, maybe, you know, it's kind
along side of course. But yeah, my dad um was
pretty faithful to whatever company fished for. You know, he
was with Parks and Western before it turned into more
back and then stayed with them. And you know, New
(08:20):
England had tenders out there at that time and they
did some code tendering with more fac too, they had
a lot of those scows. I know Jim Rockin lives
down here by me, and he he ran one of
those same tenders. Bob, Bob, how confident are you that
(08:42):
you put it on a tender versus just leaving it
be and taking the numbers? Oh? No, I didn't. I
didn't throw it away. I remember somebody taking it and
it would have been a tender, you know. Yeah, do
you remember when you you called the numbers, you talked
to the troopers and they expressed interest in it being
(09:04):
this plane. Do you know if it was just like
a casual like, oh, maybe this is related to it,
or were they pretty seriously interested that this could actually
be accurate numbers? Yeah, they were the ones that brought
it up. Apparently, you know, it was on their radar
that the plane was missing somewhere in that area. And uh,
(09:28):
you know they're the ones that told me about it.
I I was shocked when they said that. But do
you remember do you remember if that was based on
like a general suspicion it might be the plane, or
if they told you that after they saw the numbers.
I remember them saying something about the number being real
close to uh what they were looking for. So, you know,
(09:53):
it beats me what year that was. But you said
around night, I think so you know, and you said
you said you think it was roughly four numbers that
were visible. No, I think there were five or six.
How many are on a tail? Six six on a tail? Yeah,
(10:16):
it was. It was pretty much the whole tail section.
You know, it was shredded at the bottom, like I said,
and that's kind of where the number ran. Well, it's
it's really fascinating. If they did base that suspicion that
it was the missing plane on the characters, and you
had four or five of the six characters, I mean,
that would almost not definitively, but it would come close
(10:39):
to definitively saying that it was from that plane. Well,
I'm curious. Was it a red and white plane? Do
you remember it was white and like burnt orange? So
I haven't. I haven't found any photos of it, and
I've been asking people. Um, but yeah, so I know
it was. It was white and orange orange. I'm shade blind,
(11:01):
I'm color blamed, so orangepted me. Yeah. Well, um, yeah,
I mean I was. I was really fascinated when you
email me in and then I you know. We we
made it over to Cordova. We met Andy and Mark
and I had no idea that they knew you. So
it's it's been, uh, it's been an interesting experience. We
(11:23):
went out into Port Duchess and um, we want to
come back with more equipment. Um. So we had a
you know, a limited amount of time and we use
the R O V S. But um, but yeah, do
you all have any other marketing Andy, do you guys
have any other questions? So? Did it seem to be
off of that smooth you're talking about, like the scour? No,
it made sense from what Bob was saying about, you know,
(11:46):
where you do a scrape for a saying that, and
then where you don't and where you don't And and
we surveyed the area where you'd scrape, and then we
got into the eel grass where you don't because it's
all jaggedy rock and that were you know that I say,
I remember, I remember a lot of rocks on the
outside of that area. Yeah, And we were looking for
(12:10):
a place we could set you know, and you want
to be on the furthest out spots so you get
more reach, you know. Yeah, And it's a perfect little
the perfect little spit that kind of we're all point
whatever that comes out there, nice smooth gravel beach. As
far as we could see into the water, it looked
really nice, and it looked like it was really clean
(12:32):
of growth like it's regularly used for saying so um.
And then as soon as we got to the rocks,
we got into lots of eel grass and kelp and
things like that, so we pretty confident we were in
the the spot that we were talking about. Yeah, we
used to set all the time across the mouth of
Constantine at high water, and and we catched so many
(12:53):
fish that the net wouldn't even move but just be
sitting on bottom and the tender would have to come
in scoop them out right there. And you know, occasionally
we fished over in that spot where I got the tail,
but that wasn't like a regularly fished spot back down. Yeah,
I don't even know if they let them go up
(13:15):
into the that tight anymore. But up into the mouth
of the harbor there were markers at the mouth. That's
where we sat. That that was the markers set. Okay,
huh yeah, well neat spot and uh before the hat
trees that would have been. We had to pick up
(13:36):
before we got to that dolf tea looking rock out
below it. And you know, it was nice when we
caught so many fish that the net didn't move. Yeah, Pin,
you're right there. That's cool. Yeah, Well, thank you, Bob.
(13:56):
Y'all have any other questions. Okay, I've apreciate it, Bob,
thanks for talking to us again. Yeah, okay, well, good luck, Okay,
thanks so much. Take care, good winter. But huh so
he remembers what the trooper's reaction, so it's they got here.
(14:19):
So there's quite a bit of difference there. That what
I was thinking when he said the whole tail section.
I was thinking of this plane. I probably didn't convey
it just the top of the tail. And then looking
at the that's not three tens um, you can see that.
(14:40):
Sometimes the number up here has got most of the
time the number is down there. Yeah, and that's why
I've been trying to find a picture of the actual plane.
I haven't found any yet. There's a three ten when
it's not a tail, and some of it it's kind
of like right there. This one, this one I pulled
up because if you broke that off and it was
(15:02):
ripped off, you might be able to get most of
the Numbers's interesting that says seven. I think the three
tenths to was fifty nine, so that's close to when
the the c would have been produced. And a lot
of them have it the number is down here, and
then some have it way up way up there, so
(15:25):
the number moves around, which is good to know. Yeah,
it would be very fascinating now to find a picture
of the plane because if you found a picture of
the plane and the number was a little bit further
up where it would have been on like the upright piece.
I mean, that would at least wouldn't preclude the piece
that Bob found from being the right one. Well, that's
(15:48):
a really interesting a little more clarification. Um, the piece
got here obviously, so it's like who cares, I mean,
you know it's not I mean, you know what et
he or so did he give it to a tender
or to another sayer coming back because it broke down
or something? Question? I mean, would there be a possibility
that someone maybe would have like scrapped it to get money. Yeah,
(16:15):
you could pick it up by hand, probably would some
fine more aluminum in my backyard would somebody have like
taken it and like I don't know it just not accidentally,
but like just dumped it in their sheds somewhere. Sure,
and I mean they probably I can't imagine them not
taking it to the troopers. But well, they took it
to the troopers. They probably kept it. The troopers kept it,
(16:37):
not that they didn't some day throw it away because
it was taken up too much room. I don't know
what their processes. Um, you know, they take a bunch
of photographs of it and maybe they don't need to
keep it around. I don't know, but that yeah, it's
it's very fascinating now. So he got to town the
troopers according to his memories, UH thought it was a
(17:01):
possible match at the very least. Um, so hm, five
or six numbers? How could you not like go on,
well that's it or not, I don't know. You can
reach us by phone at one eight three three m
(17:23):
I A tips that's one eight three three six four
two eight four seven seven again one eight three three
six four two eight four seven seven, or you can
reach us via email at tips at iHeart media dot com.
That's tips, T I P S at iHeart media dot com.
(17:45):
Ben Bowen is our executive producer. Paul Decan is our
supervising producer, Chris Brown is our assistant producer, Seth Nicholas
Johnson is our producer. Sam T. Garden is our research assistant.
And I'm your host and executive producer, John wall Sack.
You can find me on Twitter at at John wallzac
j O n w A l c z a K
(18:08):
special thanks to our captains Mark and Andy, and to
Bob Martinson. Missing in Alaska is a co production of
I Heart Media and Greenfork Media