Justin Germann
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KFGO/AP) — A helicopter crash in Alaska last week took the lives of three passengers and a pilot. The passengers were scientists conducting fieldwork in the North Slope, one of the remotest regions in the U.S. Included among the victims was 27-year-old Justin Germann of Fairbanks, Alaska. Germann was a hydrologist with degrees from the University of North Dakota. He grew up in Bowman, N.D.
He paid his way through college by joining the North Dakota National Guard and had to have his parents sign off because he was just a few months shy of his 18th birthday when he joined.
“He’s determined, a young man who chased his dream and accomplished a lot in his life,” his mother Karla said.
He completed an internship in Alaska and immediately made plans to return.
“I don’t think he was ever coming back to southwest North Dakota. That was his dream to be there and kayak and just hike and ride a bike in the snow, which is beyond crazy to me,” she said with a chuckle.
The family had planned to visit Germann in Alaska in September but instead will travel this week to Fairbanks, where they are planning an informal memorial. His mother has been comforted by her son’s Alaska friends, who reached out to his family after his death.
“He had a lot of amazing friends up there, and we can’t wait to meet them,” she said.
All of the passengers in the helicopter were employees of Alaska’s Department of Natural Resources, working in the Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys. The crash happened last Thursday.
Alaska search and rescue divers recovered the bodies on Sunday from the sunken wreckage of the aircraft, which went down in a shallow lake about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Utqiagvik — the northernmost city in the U.S., formerly known as Barrow.
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the accident.
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