Beer Aboard a Flight to a Dry Alaska Town Costs a Pilot His $95,000 Plane

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U.S.|Beer Aboard a Flight to a Dry Alaska Town Costs a Pilot His $95,000 Plane

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/26/us/alaska-supreme-court-beer-bootlegging-plane.html

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In 2012, a state trooper in Fairbanks, Alaska, said that Kenneth J. Jouppi knowingly tried to fly into a dry community with a six-pack on board.

A man in a winter jacket stands by a small plane in Alaska with snow in the background. The plane’s tail number 2222 is visible in gold letters against a blue background.

April 26, 2025, 1:02 p.m. ET

A six-pack of beer at the corner store will generally set you back $10 or $15, maybe a tad more. But even a small batch of the most artisanal locally brewed I.P.A. isn’t $95,000.

But that’s how much a cargo of beer has cost Kenneth J. Jouppi, 82, of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, who piloted charter flights in Alaska until around 2014.

On April 18, the Alaska Supreme Court ruled that he could be forced to forfeit his $95,000 plane as a penalty for trying to fly alcohol into a dry Alaskan community that does not allow for the importation, sale or possession of alcohol, according to court records.

In April 2012, a state trooper stopped Mr. Jouppi before his plane took off from Fairbanks, Alaska, after the trooper said that he saw Mr. Jouppi “opening and closing boxes” that contained beer, according to court records.

The trooper said “it would have been impossible” for Mr. Jouppi not to see at least one six-pack out of 72 beers that were on the plane.

Mr. Jouppi denied knowing that the beer was on board. (Mr. Jouppi could not recall, and the court papers did not specify, the brand of beer.)

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