Alaska Pilot Tosses Frozen Turkeys Out of Plane for Thanksgiving
Some residents in remote Alaska recently received a “fowl” surprise from above—a pilot turned the skies into a frozen turkey drop zone.
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For the past three years, local pilot Esther Sanderlin-Keim has been delivering what the local news calls “turkey bombs” to her Alaskan neighbors in Skwentna and West Susitna Valley, who live off the road system.
Her mission began after hearing a new neighbor mention that squirrel meat would be their protein for Thanksgiving.
“I was visiting our newest neighbor and they were talking about splitting a squirrel three ways for dinner, and how that didn’t really go very far,” Sanderlin-Keim explained to Alaska’s KTUU on Monday. “And I just had a thought at that moment, ‘You know what, I’m going to airdrop them a turkey for Thanksgiving,’ because I recently rebuilt my first airplane with my dad and so I can do that really easily.”
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Heads up! Pilot Esther Sanderlin-Keim delivering frozen turkeys to residents in rural Alaska. (Image vis Facebook / Alaska Gear Company)
Traveling through frozen landscapes is tough, especially where there are no roads, making it hard for locals to get a hot meal during the holidays. However, Sanderlin-Keim’s aerial delivery system offers a distinct solution to these challenges.
“During freeze up, you can’t really get around so you can’t travel out there,” she told the local outlet. “But you can fly as long as you don’t land.”
The Pilot Hopes to Expand Her Frozen Turkey Dropping Mission in the Future
Meanwhile, Sanderlin-Keim wasn’t the first pilot in her community to drop frozen turkeys from the sky.
Inspired by a childhood experience in Alaska, where someone did the same for her neighborhood, she decided it was her turn to give back.
“We had a friend, a neighbor who would air-drop turkeys to my family and to other families in the neighborhood,” Sanderlin-Keim recalled. “That was just such a huge impact on my life and others in the community.”
This year, she delivered 30 to 40 turkeys to ensure her neighbors enjoyed a warm Thanksgiving meal. Her ambition is to expand this effort in the future, transforming her personal mission into a nonprofit organization to reach more people throughout Alaska.
“My vision with this is to reach farther parts of Alaska,” she explained. “Because there are so many families that live off the grid.”
