Recent Developments

A holiday cruise turned tragic for eight passengers on board a sightseeing float plane which impacted a rock face in the Misty Fjord National Monument Wilderness.  On June 25, 2015 the vacationers from Maryland, California, Nevada and Oregon boarded a Promech Air de Havilland DHC-3CT Otter turboprop aircraft for a sightseeing excursion as part of their cruise on the MS Westerdam operated by Holland America Line.  The trip was part of a tour called CruiseFly which consisted of two groups of passengers from the MS Westerdam; one group that boarded the sightseeing aircraft and another that boarded a marine vessel.  The two groups then met at a floating dock in Rudyard Bay and switched modes of transportation to meet back at the cruise ship in Ketchikan, Alaska.  The crash occurred on the aircraft’s return leg to the cruise ship.

On March 9, 2015, Amtrak train number 80, the Carolinian, was headed northbound from Charlotte, NC and destined for New York when it derailed near Halifax, North Carolina after striking an oversized tractor trailer obstructing the tracks at a railroad crossing.

The tractor trailer, owned by Guy M. Turner, Inc., a multi-state trucking company headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, was being operated by John Devon Black, a Turner employee and convicted felon with a history of traffic violations. The mammoth rig, hauling a huge load of building material, was reportedly sitting across the tracks for up to 20 minutes prior to the crash as the driver attempted to navigate a turn onto another roadway. Because of the size of the load, the tractor trailer was being escorted across the tracks by the North Carolina Highway Patrol.