Pilot In Fatal McCarthy Alaska Plane Wreck Hid A 2013 Crash From FAA Until Outed On Reality TV

COPPER RIVER COUNTRY JOURNAL
INVESTIGATIVE REPORT 

August 2nd, 2026 

BACKGROUND

On July 27, 2026, at 9:36 pm, Alaska State Troopers got a report of a bad plane crash near McCarthy, Alaska at the Dan Creek airstrip in the remote Wrangell Mountains in the Copper River Valley. The next morning, at 6 am, Troopers found three dead at the site of the burned plane - the local pilot, Jason Lobo, along with his two passengers, Anadyr Elliott, 23, and Anadyr's 19-year old girlfriend, “Jing” Dahlin Mungkieatsakul. It was not the first time Jason Lobo had crashed a small plane in Alaska. In 2010, as a commercial pilot, a 'Jason Lobo' ran into some trees in Kodiak while taking off; he and his two passengers survived and the incident was reported in the newspapers. Then, several years later, in 2013, Jason Lobo destroyed another Piper he owned on a sandbar near McCarthy. This crash was not reported. He kept the 2013 accident a secret from the FAA and National Transportation Board for a year, revealing it only when the destroyed plane was about to turn up as a prop for a story line on a reality TV show he was featured in: 'Edge of Alaska.'

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 REAL LIFE IN THE COPPER VALLEY OF ALASKA 

"I Was Just An Idiot" 

 

PHOTO ABOVE (Discovery Channel Promo)  

Promotional clip seen from reality TV show 'Edge of Alaska' showing wrecked Piper being towed by snowmachine back to McCarthy "before breakup." The plane was destroyed when Jason Lobo was taking off on rough gravel and hit the trees in 2013. Lobo didn't report the crash to the NTSB until a year later, when this photo was taken for a reality TV segment.
 

Jason Lobo Crashed A Plane Near McCarthy in 2013, But Failed To Report It To Officials Until It Was About To Turn Up On Reality TV A Year Later 

On April 10th, 2014 - the day Steven Colbert was announced by CBS as the replacement for David Letterman on the Tonight Show – a 'cast member' from another popular national TV show, 'Edge of Alaska,' on the Discovery Channel, called The Alaska Regional Office of the National Transportation Safety Board. It was 10:45 am, a Thursday – and 15 degrees above zero in Anchorage.

The caller, Jason Lobo, of McCarthy, Alaska, wanted to file a report on a plane crash that had occurred the year before. So the NTSB opened up a file case number: ANC13CA109, and investigators wrote down what he told them for a report. 

He had kept the crash a secret from the FAA for around a year now, he said.  But the time had arrived to come clean. That 2014 April morning he told the NTSB he had crashed and wrecked a small Piper plane on a sandbar the prior year, in 2013, in a solo flight. He hadn’t told the authorities about the incident, he said, but now he had to. 

This didn't seem to be the first time he’d destroyed a plane. The 2013 crash near McCarthy was apparently the second major plane crash he’d been involved in while living in Alaska. In 2010, while working for a commercial plane company, a Jason Lobo had crashed another plane in Kodiak. His two passengers in that crash survived. 

SEE STORY OF JASON LOBO 2010 PLANE CRASH IN KODIAK HERE: 

While speaking to the NTSB in 2014, Lobo revealed he had destroyed a Piper PA 16 in 2013, as he was trying to lift off from a remote sandbar. He'd crashed into the trees. 

Although he had not reported the 2013 crash to this point, he was doing so now, he said, because the crumpled wreck of his mutilated Piper had been drawn, as an incidental prop, into the story line for the popular 'Edge of Alaska' reality show, which featured him and half of the town of McCarthy.

The show had filmed an episode that centered around retrieving his crashed plane. It turned out that the episode would air in two months, on June 13th, 2014. The segment with his destroyed plane in it would be 43 minutes long, and called ‘Last Days of Winter.’ Jason Lobo and two friends would be shown (in a highly unrealistic scene) going out to the crash site and dragging crushed pieces of the wreck back to McCarthy on snowmachines before breakup occurred on the frozen river. Yet a year-old plane crash was apparently not that exciting. So, along the way to find his 2013 plane in the bushes and late winter snow, the script called for Jason Lobo to fall into a hole in the frozen river ice, get rescued by his buddies, and barely survive dying of hypothermia, before swiftly pulling himself together and continuing on to the downed wreck. 

Downtown McCarthy in the fall. (Journal archive, date unknown)

‘Edge of Alaska’ Show Featured A McCarthy That Was Heavily Scripted, But Not As Deadly As Real Life 

The Alaskan-based show had a 4-year run. It was set in a crumbling scenic and authentic historic locale. All the buildings in the McCarthy-Kennicott era looked like a carefully assembled Wild West set. But they were real; left over for almost a hundred years from the early days of the modern Copper River Valley in Alaska.

Conveniently, the Discovery Channel found a small and ready group of ‘actors’ nearby. All that was needed was a script. So the producers came up with drama. There were community fights, long snowmachine rides, pithy comments, arguments… and near tragedy as a heavily-scripted approximation of life in the old and historic copper mining supply town on the edge of the Copper Valley in the Wrangell Mountains played out, week after week. 

The tale of McCarthy on that show was one of villains and heroes. There were tender, practical, homey dads and rough, tough creampuffs. This was an admittedly harsh environment. It was lawless. In this McCarthy, there were no cops. According to the show, enforcing the law in this part of the Copper Valley lay in the hands of the townsfolk, not with the Alaska State Troopers in Glennallen. 

'Edge of Alaska' producers and videographers hovered nearby, recording it all  – the good, the bad, the exaggerated, the stupid – and sent a colorful, romanticized view of McCarthy to the outside world as a testimony of the trials of life in the Copper River Valley. 

Of course, Alaska actually is harsh. Jason Lobo had obviously barely escaped from his solo plane crash the year before in 2013. His plane really had been completely wrecked. 

But, ultimately, the true deadly consequences of life in McCarthy, it turns out, are far worse than any reality TV show can imagine.

Jason Lobo’s Report, As Recorded By The National Transportation Safety Board 

In 2014 Regarding 2013 Plane Crash 

When Jason Lobo called in his 2013 crash to investigators in 2014, they determined he had not filed a flight plan.

This is what the investigators at NTSB wrote down in their official report about what he said: 

NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD

RECORD OF CONVERSATION

APRIL 10, 2014 @ 10:45 AM

NARRATIVE:

Jason Lobo called the main number for the Anchorage office of the NTSB to report an aviation accident that occurred about 1 year prior.

Mr. Lobo explained that he was departing in his Piper PA-16, from a rough and uneven gravel bar, that was surrounded by trees. He said that during the takeoff run the airplane just didn't seem like it was accelerating, but he elected to continue his takeoff anyway. He said that once the airplane became airborne, he was unable to clear a stand of trees (at) the end of the site, and the wings subsequently collided with (a) group of small trees. Mr. Lobo stated that both wings and the fuselage sustained substantial damage, and that there were no mechanical problems with the airplane. He stated in part: "I was just an idiot."

I then asked Mr. Lobo why he was just now reporting the accident, and he stated that he was participating in the filming of an Alaska based reality TV show, and he just recently learned that photos/video of his damaged airplane were going to be part of that show. He was mainly concerned that once the show airs, the FAA should see it.

The final NTSB Aviation Investigation Report for the case determined that the crash of a personal Piper PA 16, registered N5965H, had occurred on June 5th, 2013 at 11:30 local time. There had been "substantial" damage, the report said, and no injuries to the single crew member and occupant of the plane at the time. 

The report said the probable cause of the accident was "The pilot's loss of control during the initial climb after takeoff, resulting in a collision with trees." The pilot was 41 years old at the time, and apparently had instrument ratings but not instructor ratings. He did not have a medical certification. He was not an occupational pilot. No toxicology exam was performed, the final report said. 

The Piper was built in 1949, with serial number 16-594, and its airworthiness was "normal." The plane had an Emergency Locator Transmitter, or ELT, on board. But it was not activated, the NTSB noted. 

And, in the 2013 incident, it was noted that no flight plan was filed.