On Saturday An Alaska Airlines Flight Landed On A Bear

by Gary Leff

An Alaska Airlines flight landed on a bear on Saturday in Yakutat, Alaska. The Boeing 737-700 impacted the bear on the left side of the aircraft but continued to land and taxi without incident. They returned to the apron where they discovered a deceased brown bear, a mother whose two year old cub was unharmed. The plane suffered damage to its left engine.

Only 10 minutes prior the runway had been inspected, with no wildlife present prior to the arrival of the flight from Codova, Alaska. The next two sectors of Alaska flight 66’s milk run – to Juneau and then on to Anchorage – were cancelled.

Passengers were rebooked onto Alaska flight 107 later in the evening. The occurrence aircraft remains on the ground in Yakutat.

This isn’t the first bear at an airport, indeed polar bears have halted Alaska Airlines operations before. And Alaska Airlines has landed on a deer before as well.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  3. Wow. This story is un-Bearable. At least the pilot just Bearly missed the cub. For those planning a trip to Alaska, you will need to Bear in mind that this could happen again.

  4. I have to admit, when I saw the title of this article I uttered aloud, “this is going to be clickbait.” But boy, was I wrong! Heck of a story! Good images too! Thanks for such an interesting piece.

  6. Its sad and I don’t believe that the runway was inspected only 10 mins earlier…someone wasn’t doing their job and should be fired! Its an awful thing and could have been avoided because some lazy f@cker decided to take a coffee break at the wrong time.

  8. My condolences to all in the bears family.
    Bad enough Alaska guest Gold upgrades are meaningless and don’t work,their mileage redemption costs sky high but now to murder an innocent bear on his way home 🙁 So So sad
    I guess they had to one up United who breaks guitars and yanks passengers bloody off flights to make room for employee class.

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