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An Unfortunate Accident or a Daring Escape?
The disappearance of Ian Mackintosh
A plane disappeared near Kodiak Island on the evening of July 7th, 1979. Did it crash, or did the passengers fake the wreck so they could escape? Ian Mackintosh, one of the passengers, was a former British Royal Navy officer and probably an ex-spy for Britain during the Cold War with the Soviet Union.
In the 1970s, Mackintosh wrote a British TV series about life aboard a fictional frigate, the HMS Hero. The series, developed with the blessing of the Royal Navy, became extremely popular in England. In the late 1970s, Mackintosh wrote The Sandbaggers, a T.V. drama the New York Times and many other critics called the best and most authentic T.V. spy series of all time. Instead of coming across glitzy and high-tech like James Bond, The Sandbaggers had a gritty, dark feel to it.
On July 7th, 1979, Graham Barber, an experienced British Airways pilot, rented a single-engine Rallye 235 airplane in Anchorage. After a test flight, Barber, his friend, Mackintosh, and Mackintosh’s girlfriend, Susan Insole, flew toward Kodiak. The weather that evening was clear but very windy in Kodiak. Barber sent out a distress signal at approximately 5.45 pm while flying north-northeast of Kodiak Island. The air traffic controller at the Kodiak airport relayed the call to the U.S. Coast…
