When 10 people, pilot included, boarded a seaplane bound for Seattle, none of them had any idea it would be their final flight. Sadly, the small aircraft took a nosedive into the Puget Sound, killing all on board. Tragic stories like this appear in the news regularly; the names of the victims unknown to most of us who soon move on. In a six-part installment of our latest Alta Serial, writer Benjamin Cassidy introduces us to the souls on that ill-fated flight, from a family of three—with one on the way—to a popular young lawyer returning from a friend’s waterfront wedding. Cassidy joins Alta Live to help us get to know those aboard, detail his efforts to trace their respective final weekends, and examine the ripple effects of a single tragedy. Join us for what’s sure to be an interesting and important conversation.

About the guest:

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 City and Regional Magazine Association and the Society of Professional Journalists. After spending several years in the Pacific Northwest, he now lives in New England.

Here are some notable quotes from the event:

  • On first learning about the crash: “I was living in Seattle when this happened, and it generated a lot of headlines when it happened. If you live in Seattle, there are seaplanes buzzing overhead all the time.… This crash, when it happened, was so jarring because seaplanes are regarded as a glamorous, pleasant way of traveling—a way to get around the ferry system, which can be persnickety—and in this part of the world, for all of these different people to be on one really small plane, I thought it was remarkable.”
  • On starting this project: “I think the first thing I did was reach out to the families because I wanted them to know what I was up to. And, obviously, their participation would be critical because I wanted to know what these people were thinking, what was going on in their lives—these people would tend to know best.… Every one of those conversations, when you constantly hear the same adjectives and same descriptions of people come up over and over and over again, that’s when you really feel like you have a sense of who this person was.”
  • On reporting for the Alta Serial: “One of the more powerful memories of reporting this was talking to some of Sandy and Pat’s friends and people saying the only comfort was knowing that in those final moments they would have been with each other to say goodbye and hold each other.”

Check out these links to some of the topics brought up this week.