The Discovery Channel’s “Flying Wild Alaska” series’ star, Bush pilot Jim Tweto, and an Idaho hunting and fishing guide were both died when their light plane crashed shortly after takeoff, according to Alaska State Troopers. In the past ten years, three seasons of the television series have focused on Tweto’s family-run rural aviation company in Unalakleet.
According to the statement, he and passenger Shane Reynolds of Orofino, Idaho, perished on Friday not far from the coastal community of Shaktoolik, about 125 miles (200 kilometers) east of Nome.
Around 11:48 a.m. on Friday, troopers received word that an SOS had been activated and that a Cessna 180 had crashed 35 miles to the northeast of Shaktoolik.
Who is Jim Tweto? Famed bush pilot and Idaho guide dies in Western Alaska plane crash
Jim Tweto, a well-known bush pilot who starred in the Discovery Channel documentary series Flying Wild Alaska in the early 2010s, perished in a plane crash on Friday.
Tweto, 68, and the passenger were died in a crash that happened around 35 miles northeast of Shaktoolik, Alaska.
At around 11.50 a.m., Tweto’s Cessna 180 crashed, according to Alaksa state cops. The plane apparently took off, but it failed to reach altitude before colliding with the ground.