Two On Board The Zenith CH 701 Were Reportedly Looking For A Bear

One person was fatally injured and one was hospitalized following an accident in Alaska involving a Zenith CH 701 amateur-built airplane Tuesday.

Pilot and builder Mike Whedbee, 66, was fatally injured when the plane went down in a swampy area Monday near Blanket Lake, about three miles north of Big Lake, AK, according to Alaska State Police. The Anchorage Daily News reports that his passenger, Jason Scott, was hospitalized at Mat-Su Regional Medical Center after surgery.

The two had been conducting an aerial search for what they thought was a nine-foot-tall grizzly bear that had left large footprints ... described as "pizza-sized" ... in the grass at Whedbee's private airstrip.

Whedbee's wife Grace, who had helped him build the Zenith, said her husband was a long-time pilot who had "recently and happily" retired, but who had been battling colon cancer. She said he was "winning" against the disease, and "would have been cancer-free very soon."

An NTSB investigator on the scene said the Zenith was "pretty well fragmented." The SAR effort was assisted by both the 212th Rescue Squadron of the Alaska Air National and the Alaska Army National Guard, coordinated by the Alaska Rescue Coordination Center (AKRCC) on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. A Black Hawk helicopter that was already preparing to conduct a training mission was dispatched after Scott had called the AKRCC on his cell phone, and an ELT signal was received.

(Zenith CH 701 pictured in file photo. Not accident aircraft)

FMI: http://www.jber.af.mil/11af/akrcc.asp