A sad loss for the aviation world - Jim Tweto

I only just found out about the sad news, that Jim Tweto of “Flying Wild Alaska” fame, along with a passenger, were lost in an accident on June 16th in Alaska. I have not seen any posts on here about it, so I thought that I’d make one.

Flying Wild Alaska was one of the first TV shows that I had seen that really captured a bit of the reality of what flying for a small air carrier up North could be like. A lot of these reality shows tend to be over dramatized, and while there is definitely some of that in FWA, the work that these pilots are doing doesn’t really need any of that to make it more exciting. A big part of what makes the show fun to watch though, is Jim Tweto. He was obviously reluctant to be on camera, but even still couldn’t help but come across very naturally as himself. Seemed like a fun guy who just lived to fly bush planes, and to share that passion with others. It’s a shock to see someone with so much experience lost in an accident, that has seemingly happened in good weather, doing a job that would have been just another day. Rest in Peace Jim.

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I found out about it 2 weeks ago. Very sad indeed. I loved the show Flying Wild Alaska. I learned to really like and respect Jim through this show. He came across as a safe and very good pilot. And his humor was awesome. We were introduced to Sue Aikens on this show. Pilot John Ponce used to stop at Kavik and bring her supplies or sometimes just to stop and give her some company. She went on to be a star in Life Below Zero. Anothet show I love.
Jim will be sorely missed. There is speculation as to what happened. I won’t get into that here as I’d like to wait until the results of the investigation. My prayers go out to the Tweto family as well as their family of pilots.

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