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Pilot Explains West Molokai Accident

Monday, April 14th, 2014

For John Weiser, the pilot whose plane crashed on his west Molokai airstrip on Feb. 27, it was a 1 in 10,000 accident.

“I must have landed on this airstrip more than 10,000 times in the last 30 years with no trouble,” he said, adding that he has more than 20,000 pilot hours logged. “When I came in to land that day, I was off-center. I should have turned around and come back, but instead, I did the turn and when I rolled out, I was in the trees.”

Weiser said his private grass airstrip on his Papohaku property has runway lights, and though some are out, he still lands at night, as he did on Feb.…

Molokai Says Goodbye to Island Air

Sunday, April 6th, 2014

On April 1, Island Air took off from Molokai for the last time after the company announced last month that it would end its service to the island. Terry Cole is an air traffic controller on Molokai and snapped this shot from the tower.

“There were quite a few cars parked on the hill waving goodbye, and the pilot expressed his sadness about not coming back,” she said.

Island Air CEO Paul Casey told the Dispatch that the company waited until it was “sure that the residents of Molokai had adequate service” before deciding to “redeploy our aircraft to another route that needs more capacity.”

Island Air had eight full-time and seven part-time employees based on Molokai, the longest of whom has worked for the company more than 25 years, according to Casey.…