Alta Journal is pleased to present the fourth installment of a six-part series by writer Benjamin Cassidy. Each week, we’ll publish online the next portion of “The Ripples of Mutiny Bay.” Visit altaonline.com/serials to keep reading, and sign up here to be notified by email when each new installment is available.
The seaplane is an icon of the Pacific Northwest. Small aircraft launch and land regularly on the placid waters that lap against its major cities and destination isles, serving as quaint reminders of both the region’s rich aviation history and its majestic, fragmented geography. But on Labor Day weekend in 2022, in the most tranquil of settings, one such aircraft ferried its passengers to the most tragic of ends. Shortly after takeoff from idyllic San Juan Island, a de Havilland Canada DHC-3 Otter bound for the Seattle area nose-dived into Puget Sound, killing all 10 people and an unborn baby on board.
The flight carried a remarkably eclectic group of passengers, among them a seasoned civil rights activist, a popular winemaker, and a young lawyer. Their deaths sent shock waves up and down the entire West Coast, from Southern California to the northwest corner of Washington State, and as far as Minnesota. Who were these people, and what can we learn from their lives—and their deaths? In Part Three, Cassidy told the story of Gabby Hanna.
Be quiet?
The pilot’s order didn’t make sense to the passengers who’d just boarded the small plane. Moments earlier, Jason Winters had appeared as excited as the others were for this midday journey to Harris Ranch Resort in Fresno County, California, where they’d share lunch and, it seemed, some laughs. Now he was abruptly asking them to pipe down.
What had happened to Jason?
They turned to Conor Davis, his longtime friend and business partner, who responded with a knowing look. “We can talk once we’re in the air,” Davis assured the others, well aware by now of his friend’s personality.
Ever since they were teenagers in Washington State, Davis had seen Winters flip the switch—from fun-loving, gregarious guy to serious, meticulous worker. After they first acquired a Cessna in 2004, on trips to Mexico and Lake Tahoe and other locations across the West, Winters was always strict about completing his preflight checklist in peace.
The pilot’s commitment to preparation stemmed from his youth near Lake Chelan, the sinuous, 50-mile-long oasis in north-central Washington that attracts more than two million visitors every year. The allure of the fjord-like lake—the third-deepest in the country, behind Crater Lake and Lake Tahoe—lies in its stark contrasts. At its southern end, glistening water meets a parched desert dotted with wineries, while its northern strip cuts through verdant snowcapped mountains that rise to more than 8,000 feet. Stehekin, a popular recreational spot that anchors this upper wilderness, is only accessible by foot, boat, or plane.
For time-constrained tourists, or those who just want to witness the dramatic shift in the landscape at the speed of a time-lapse video, flying from one end of the lake to the other has long been a popular attraction. Just like in the San Juan Islands, seaplane pilots around Chelan had developed a steady business in the area by the middle of the 20th century, founding an outfit, Chelan Airways, that endured for decades.
It didn’t take long for Winters to discover the region’s seaplane service after moving to the area in middle school. Like others in Manson, a small community near the southern tip of the lake, the Minnesota native embraced snowboarding and wakeboarding. But it was the floatplanes that most captured his attention.
As a teenager, Winters started working down on the dock for the owner of Chelan Airways, Nick Nolen. Mechanically inclined, Winters quickly proved to be a fastidious worker, washing, loading, and refueling aircrafts. In return, Nolen and company shared what they knew about flying them. If they had extra seats on a flight, they’d invite the teenager to ride along. On return trips, if there was no one else in the aircraft but the pilot, they’d let him steer.
The high schooler’s initial intrigue grew into ardor as he continued working for Nolen over multiple summers, gaining more experience in the air. Friends could tell he loved the gig, which wasn’t without its social advantages. Before a high school dance one time, Winters piloted a plane to fly his friends and their dates to a restaurant in Stehekin.
But after graduating from high school in 1997, Winters didn’t immediately devote himself to becoming a pilot. In May 1998, he moved to Modesto to help Davis get a recycling business off the ground. They’d taken a rollicking spring break trip to Mexico two months earlier with his close friend Ryan Miller, but at work, Winters was no fun to be around, all focus. Coworkers jokingly reminded one another not to talk to him until after work hours.
Off the clock, Winters was less inhibited. At a club in Australia on September 11, 2001, he and some friends crossed paths with Bill Clinton, a moment captured in what became a legendary photo among the friend group. In the shot, Winters is leaning back in a black shirt with leopard-spotted panels, hair spiked, smiling widely as the former president sheepishly looks to the side. Moments later, friends recounted, the Secret Service whisked Clinton away following news of plane crashes in New York City, Virginia, and Pennsylvania.
A few years later, Winters started taking flying lessons in earnest. Davis initially joined him, but only Winters stuck with it and received his pilot license. The friends bought a two-seat Cessna 150 and, shortly thereafter, a six-seat Cessna 210, traveling back home to Lake Chelan for Fourth of July parties and other occasions. They also ventured elsewhere—Palm Springs, Boise, Idaho, and Seattle—with buddies in tow.
Even when there was a crowd in the cabin, Winters didn’t let their judgment sway his own in the cockpit. After a long flight from Mexico, facing a strong crosswind at his usual landing spot in Modesto, the pilot diverted to Stockton without hesitation. It was hardly an unprecedented maneuver. Winters obsessed over landings, even repeating them when he didn’t feel his first attempt was perfect. Which wasn’t to say they were ever bad. Davis, who’d taken lessons with other beginner pilots prone to hair-raising landings, never had a rough one with Winters.
In 2013, Winters completed his initial commercial pilot license proficiency check. The pilot had returned to Washington State with his wife, Nicole Medved, a fellow Manson native. They imagined starting a family and raising their kids near their own parents. And Winters always talked about becoming a professional pilot; Washington and its seasonal seaplane businesses offered many potential entry points.
Typically, from May through October, Winters flew for West Isle Air and Northwest Seaplanes, which later combined and expanded to encompass two services: Friday Harbor Seaplanes and Chelan Seaplanes, formerly Chelan Airways. While there were more experienced pilots at the company, Winters quickly distinguished himself. Patrons requested the young pilot for charters, and Winters found himself befriending them and other passengers on scheduled trips to the San Juan Islands.
En route, wearing his summer uniform of sunglasses, a polo, and shorts, he’d point out whales and obscure islands before descending into shimmering marinas and gently taxiing to the dock, where he knew many of the locals. Davis, who tagged along for a couple of his commercial flights, could tell Winters still relished both the intimacy and technical challenges of manning a small aircraft.
But by the summer of 2022, the pilot was confiding in his friend that he might have to leave the business. The seasonal work of floatplane piloting wasn’t as reliable, or lucrative, as flying for a regional or major airline full-time. During the offseason, Winters worked with Davis in California to supplement his income. He’d started pursuing certifications for a more traditional aviation career that he hoped would land him at Seattle-based Alaska Airlines. The summer of 2022, he told Davis, would likely be his last flying a seaplane.
Still, he wasn’t easing up that season. By Labor Day weekend, he’d accrued nearly 300 hours of flight time for Northwest Seaplanes over the previous 90 days. He’d be flying that weekend in a 1967 de Havilland Canada DHC-3 Otter, doing three multileg round trips to the San Juans from the southern tip of Lake Washington, just east of Seattle.
The first trip went off without a hitch. Among others, Winters dropped off fellow pilot Alan Buchanan in Friday Harbor. Many aviators have put down roots in the San Juans after shuttling others between the isles. (An aviation organization calls it a “pilot’s paradise.”) Buchanan had flown with Friday Harbor Seaplanes before and knew Winters to be a thorough pilot. On Buchanan’s ride, the pilot was his usual diligent self, and the plane seemed to be in fine condition.
On his second trip, Winters would stop on Lopez Island, known for laid-back locals who greet passersby with a wave, before returning to San Juan Island to pick up passengers in Roche Harbor and Friday Harbor.
The nine people joining him on the flight back to the Seattle area all had disparate reasons for venturing to the San Juans. Some had come to honor milestones. Civil rights activist Sandy Williams and her partner, Pat Hicks, had journeyed from Spokane to celebrate their birthdays and rekindled love. Gabby Hanna, a young lawyer from Seattle, had visited Roche Harbor for a friend’s wedding before taking the seat next to Winters on the plane.
Others were fêting their next chapters. Winemaker Ross Mickel and his wife, Lauren Hilty, had stayed and dined with friends during their return to San Juan Island, where they’d married three years earlier. On the flight back to the Eastside suburbs, their 22-month-old son, Remy, lay across Hilty’s lap, beside his mother’s growing belly; baby Luca was due the next month.
Minnesota couple Luke and Rebecca Ludwig had traveled the farthest to board that day. The unfailingly kind 42-year-olds loved to adventure, taking their kids on trips to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness near the Canadian border. On this journey, they traveled without them.
Unlike the others, one passenger was leaving the San Juans a little earlier than anticipated.
Joanne Mera had spent more than three decades building a small event-planning company, Pacific Event Productions, into the backbone of the San Diego social scene. In the early days, she and her business partner, George Duff, made next to nothing, rolling their revenue back into lights, linens—everything. But in time, with Mera and Duff’s invisible hands at work, the business grew to plan weddings, fundraisers, and corporate events. Mera, the CEO, particularly loved helming the entertainment division, hiring celebrities like Jay Leno and Sheryl Crow to perform.
By 2020, Pacific Event Productions had ballooned to more than 800 events per year, but the company was forced to scale back significantly when COVID-19 hit. It wasn’t until 2022 that Duff and Mera felt confident they’d weathered the worst. Mera planned a vacation to visit her sister in Seattle and the San Juans, and the night before she left, she and Duff shared an exultant dinner with their spouses at a restaurant in La Jolla.
Her husband, Victor, a restaurant owner, couldn’t make the trip to Washington, and Mera worried about being apart for their 34th anniversary that Monday, September 5. She rearranged her plans, booking an earlier flight from San Juan Island to the Seattle area to ensure she would make it back to her husband in time.
At about 2:50 p.m., Winters lifted off. As always, his boss, Shane Carlson, tracked the flight on radar. If anything was amiss, the pilot was supposed to alert him via text.
At first, the plane followed its normal southerly route. It faced typical winds between 5 and 15 knots, and it climbed to somewhere between 600 and 700 feet, just below the cloud layer. But 18 minutes into the flight, the aircraft stopped moving across Carlson’s radar screen. It appeared to land in Port Townsend, nowhere near its Seattle-area destination.
Carlson checked his messages. There was nothing from Winters. When he tried texting and calling the ever-reliable pilot, he heard nothing back.
After several long minutes, a message arrived. It was from the Coast Guard.•
Visit altaonline.com/serials to keep reading “The Ripples of Mutiny Bay” by Benjamin Cassidy, and sign up for email notifications when each new installment is available.
Benjamin Cassidy is a journalist and fiction writer. Formerly the features editor of Seattle Met, he has written for GQ, National Geographic, and Scientific American, among other publications, and has received awards from the National City and Regional Magazine Association and Society of Professional Journalists. After spending several years in the Pacific Northwest, he now lives in New England.
