Why Alaska Is REFUSING to Retire Its 1950s Douglas DC-6s

In January 2026, the fuel plane to Anaktuvuk Pass broke down, and for about a week nothing came. In much of rural Alaska, heating fuel and diesel still arrive by air, and a lot of it rides in Douglas DC-6s built between 1952 and 1958. Every major airline retired the DC-6 decades ago. In Fairbanks, one family company, Everts, still flies them: four-engine piston airliners from the Truman and Eisenhower years, carrying 5,000 to 6,000 gallons of fuel onto short gravel strips at 40 below. This is why Alaska keeps refusing to let them go, and why that's getting harder every year: no spare parts, the end of leaded avgas, and fewer people who know how to keep radial engines running. 0:00 The week the fuel didn't come 1:21 A state with no roads 3:03 The airplane's first life 5:36 The family that kept them 7:54 Why it still does the job 10:53 The jets take over 11:39 The work jets can't do 12:54 Running out of parts and people 15:42 One more last flight 17:15 The last DC-6s outside Alaska 17:44 Still working for a living If you ever flew on a DC-6, worked on one, or grew up in a village that waited on a fuel plane, tell us about it in the comments. Footage and images: Just Planes, Smithsonian Channel, NBC News, PeriscopeFilm, Classic Airliners & Vintage Pop Culture, EAA, Wikimedia Commons and the other channels credited on screen. Stock footage: Storyblocks. #Alaska #DC6 #Aviation #Everts #BushFlying #AviationHistory