Pilot killed dropping food to parish youth group hiking in Alaska

Published: 2006-07-03

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (CNS) -- One man died and another was seriously injured June 27 when their small airplane crashed while making a food drop to a parish youth group along a remote Alaskan hiking trail. The pilot, 30-year-old Michael Lawler, died instantly when the single-engine aircraft, swooping low over the hikers, suddenly crashed into the tundra about 150 yards from the trail. His passenger, Matthew Medlock, 21, was upgraded from critical to stable condition June 28. Medlock is the son of Father Scott Medlock, administrator of St. Patrick Parish in Anchorage and a former Methodist minister who became Catholic and received Vatican approval to become a priest for the Archdiocese of Anchorage. Many of the hikers -- nine youths and six adults, including Father Medlock, from St. Patrick -- witnessed the crash. The parishioners were on the second day of a three-day hike on Resurrection Pass Trail, which travels through a mountain pass on Alaska's Kenai Peninsula.

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