Colleen Mondor presents The Map of My Dead Pilots, the Dangerous Game of Flying in Alaska

Abstract

I learned to fly at age eighteen and have degrees in aviation, history, and northern studies. The Map of My Dead Pilots is based on my experiences as lead dispatcher at a Part 135 (commercial) air carrier based in Fairbanks. The "Company" had bases in multiple bush locations and flew single-engine, multi-engine, and twin turbine aircraft carrying everything from scheduled passengers and mail to convicts and sled dogs. There were incidents and accidents, moments of Pythonesque absurdity and brain-numbing hard work. It was never the profession I learned about in the classroom nor the glory stories so popular in modern mith. It is the story of the people who worked at one Alaskan commuter airline and the culmination of my efforts to understand how commercial pilots live and die in the Last Frontier.