It was March 27, 2021, and in the Alaskan mountains, the last run of the day was approaching. The Chugach Mountains are among the most sought-after heli-skiing destinations in the world — a sport where helicopters transport skiers and snowboarders to mountain peaks inaccessible by lifts or roads. For powder enthusiasts, it's the ultimate experience.
It was here, high above the Knik Glacier near Palmer, that a tragedy occurred, affecting not only the Czech Republic but also the entire business world. The wealthiest Czech, Petr Kellner, died in a helicopter crash along with four other people. Only one person survived.
In the investigation report by the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), Petr Kellner is listed only as “Passenger – Aft Seat No. 4”. However, behind this stark designation lies a powerful human story of the last minutes and hours of one of the most prominent Czech figures of recent decades.
There were six people on board the Soloy Helicopters Airbus AS350-B3. The aircraft was piloted by thirty-three-year-old Zachary Russell, an experienced pilot with over three thousand flight hours, including more than fifteen hundred on the AS350 type. Alongside him sat the lead mountain guide, Gregory Harms. In the back row were another guide, Sean McManamy, French snowboarder and long-time Kellner friend Benjamin Larochaix, Czech snowboarder and photographer David Horváth, and Petr Kellner.
The day, however, began quite routinely. The helicopter arrived shortly before 3 PM at a private residence by Wasilla Lake, from where the group departed towards the mountains. According to David Horváth’s later testimony, the weather was “nice” but also felt strange and a little unsettling. The departure was even delayed slightly due to conditions. During the afternoon, the group completed five or six drops on mountain slopes, and there was no indication of impending danger.
The last flight of the day began at 6:27 PM. The helicopter headed for another ridge, from where the skiers were to make their final descent. GPS data later allowed investigators to reconstruct the last minutes almost second by second. Shortly after 6:33 PM, the aircraft was moving just a few meters above the ground, practically hovering over a narrow mountain ridge at an altitude of over 1900 meters above sea level. The pilot attempted to land. But the first attempt failed, and the helicopter lifted off again to get into a better position for a second approach.
Then came the moment that decided the fate of everyone on board.
The snow was exceptionally light and dry. The helicopter's rotor, while hovering over the ridge, stirred it into a dense cloud that engulfed the entire aircraft within seconds. The sky disappeared, the mountains disappeared, the horizon disappeared. The pilot suddenly saw nothing.
Survivor David Horváth later told investigators that the helicopter was suddenly “engulfed in fog” and the entire space looked like a “small white room.” Pilots know this phenomenon as whiteout, and it is one of the most dangerous situations in mountain flying. In such a moment, the pilot loses orientation and cannot determine their movement relative to the terrain. The NTSB later concluded that the loss of visual reference was the immediate cause of the accident.
Someone in the cabin also realized the danger.
“Don’t do it!”
“Nedělej to!” (Czech for “Don’t do it!”)
According to the survivor's testimony, these words were uttered three times just before the catastrophe. The investigation report never stated who said them. It is still unclear whether it was Petr Kellner, Benjamin Larochaix, or someone else in the back seats. What is certain is that a few seconds later, the helicopter began to move abruptly backward towards the slope.
The impact came almost immediately.
The helicopter crashed approximately five meters below the ridge summit and then bounced several times off the rocky slope. It then began to roll down the mountainside. The main part of the wreckage stopped about 150 meters below the initial impact site, and debris was scattered in a swath almost three hundred meters long. Investigators subsequently confirmed that the helicopter was technically sound and that no mechanical fault preceded the accident.
It is at this point that the technical investigation report transforms into a human story.
After the helicopter stopped, David Horváth remained trapped inside the wreckage, wedged between other passengers and buried under snow. When he looked around, he saw the person from seat number four sitting in the snow.
It was Petr Kellner.
They communicated briefly with each other.
Both were conscious.
Both were alive.
According to later witness statements and court documents, both assumed that help would arrive shortly. Some information from later court proceedings suggests that Petr Kellner might have tried to find a satellite phone or another way to communicate with rescuers. However, the investigation report only confirms that he subsequently began to slowly move down the slope in a sitting position.
David Horváth did not know why.
Perhaps he was looking for help.
Perhaps he was trying to get into a safer position.
Perhaps he was struggling with the effects of injuries and shock.
After a while, however, he stopped responding.
This is the last moment of Petr Kellner's life that can be reconstructed with certainty from publicly available documents.
Meanwhile, no one knew the helicopter had crashed.
The last tracking signal came shortly after the accident. As early as 7:15 PM, the flight tracking operator notified a supervisor that the helicopter had not moved for forty minutes and that there was no communication with the crew. Yet, a rescue plan was not immediately initiated. Another heli-ski company assessed the situation as normal operations, expecting the helicopter was merely completing its last drop. Later, incorrect information even claimed the aircraft was returning to the residence near Wasilla Lake.
By then, however, the helicopter had been lying broken high in the mountains for over an hour.
The emergency plan was activated only after 8 PM. The wreckage was located around 9:36 PM, and the first rescuers reached the site shortly after midnight, approximately five hours and forty minutes after the accident. David Horváth was found still strapped in his seatbelt inside the wreckage. He was transported to the hospital with severe hypothermia and extensive frostbite on both hands.
It is perhaps the conclusion of the entire story that makes Petr Kellner's Alaskan tragedy so exceptionally powerful even years after the accident. It is not a case where everyone on board died instantly upon impact. The investigation report and the testimony of the sole survivor show that at least two people were still alive after the crash – David Horváth and Petr Kellner. And it is from this moment that questions arise that will probably never be answered with certainty.
Official documents state Kellner's cause of death as blunt force trauma sustained when the helicopter crashed into the mountainside. However, this does not automatically mean that death occurred immediately. In traumatology, it is not uncommon for a person with very serious internal injuries to remain conscious for some time and communicate with their surroundings.
This is precisely why a question later arose that still accompanies the entire tragedy:
Could everything have turned out differently if help had arrived sooner?
The NTSB does not directly answer this question. In its report, it merely states that the delayed initiation of the search and the delayed activation of rescue services prolonged the time that survivors were exposed to the extreme conditions of the Alaskan mountains.
The timeline itself seems almost unbelievable even today. From the accident at 6:36 PM to the arrival of the first rescuers at 00:15 AM, almost six hours passed. Six hours at an altitude of over 1900 meters, in temperatures well below freezing, and in strong mountain winds.
David Horváth survived only thanks to an extraordinary combination of circumstances. He remained trapped inside the wreckage, partially protected by the helicopter's structure and snow. Nevertheless, he was transported to the hospital with severe hypothermia, and his body temperature reached only 27.7 degrees Celsius.
According to testimony, Petr Kellner was outside the helicopter wreckage, directly exposed to wind, frost, and the open mountain environment. The investigation report states that after some time he began to slowly move down the slope in a sitting position and subsequently stopped responding. Why he decided to leave the crash site, no one knows today.
He might have been looking for a safer, wind-sheltered spot. He might have been trying to find communication equipment or a satellite phone. He might have been disoriented due to injuries, shock, or developing hypothermia. And it is also possible that he was simply trying to get closer to the place from where he expected help to arrive.
The human organism following severe trauma often reacts in ways that may seem illogical from the outside. The combination of bleeding, pain, shock, and rapidly developing hypothermia fundamentally affects a person's decision-making and orientation during the first minutes after an accident.
The investigation ultimately showed that the tragedy was not caused by a single mistake or a single person.
It was a chain of events.
Light powder created whiteout.
The pilot lost orientation in the white darkness.
Training for similar situations was not sufficient, according to the NTSB.
Flight tracking procedures were not set up to allow for a quick response.
Incorrect information emerged that the helicopter was returning to base.
And the rescue operation began several hours later than it could have.
Each of these factors alone would probably not have caused the catastrophe.
Together, however, they created a situation from which there was no return.
In the NTSB investigation report, Petr Kellner remains only as “Passenger – Aft Seat No. 4.”
Behind this technical designation, however, stands a man who built one of the largest business groups in Central Europe, influenced the economies of several countries, and employed tens of thousands of people worldwide.
In the last known minutes of his life, however, he was not an investor, a billionaire, or the wealthiest Czech.
He was a man sitting in the snow high in the Alaskan mountains who, according to available testimonies, survived the helicopter crash itself, still communicated with the sole survivor, and probably believed that help would arrive at any moment.
Whether faster rescue would have changed his fate, no one knows with certainty today.
It is this uncertainty that perhaps makes the entire story of Petr Kellner so exceptionally powerful and painful, even years later.