Alec Jurgeleit (left) and Mike Denker (right) before takeoff on Wednesday. (photo courtesy of Alex and Mike)

Haines School Graduate Alec Jurgeleit flies planes for Horizon Air. On Wednesday, he piloted a flight from Seattle to Vancouver and back. For him, it was a normal day at work except for one thing. His uncle Mike Denker was flying as his co-pilot. 

Haines resident Mike Denker says when he was growing up in Oklahoma his father took him on a field trip to the Muskogee airport. They got permission from a mechanic to take a look inside one of the planes. He can’t really explain why, but from that day forward he became obsessed with aviation.

“Something about sitting in the cockpit of that old DC3 and looking out over that instrument panel triggered something in me that that’s what I wanted to do,” Denker says.

By high school, he started learning to fly planes, and he received his license during his junior year.

He started working as a pilot in the ’80s and eventually moved to Haines to work for the now-defunct airlines L.A.B. Flying Service and Haines Airways.

Little did he know, his aviation career in Haines would have a big impact on his nephew Alec Jurgeleit, a former Haines resident now living in Vancouver.  

“Mike is definitely the one that got me hooked on the flying bug, so I blame him for all of this,” Jurgeleit says. 

When Jurgeleit was around eight years old, Denker started taking him up in his plane. Denker says he still has the entries in his log book from the flights they took decades ago.

Eventually, Jurgeleit started learning how to fly using a computer program at home.

“Alec got the bug right around the same time I got the bug, right around 8,9, 10 years old,” Denker says. “He had a flight simulator, Microsoft Flight Sim. I remember going over to family dinners. The family would go upstairs at Jim and Anna’s house, and Alec and I would go downstairs to his simulator. I would teach him things and he would fly the wings off this simulator. You could tell he had the ability back then.”

After graduating from the Haines School, Jurgeleit started getting qualifications for commercial flying. He’s been working as a pilot for about 7 years now, most recently with Horizon Air.

“It’s been a lot of fun,” Jurgeleit says. “I enjoy my job. I enjoy going to work every day. It’s just something different. You’re not sitting in an office from 9 to 5.”

By the time Jurgeleit started working as a pilot, Denker had taken a break from his aviation career. He wanted to spend more time in Haines, so he started a career with Delta Western. But a few years ago, when Jurgeleit told him about an opportunity at Horizon Air, he jumped on it.

These days, Denker and Jurgeleit are reserve pilots for the airline. They don’t have a regular route and are basically on call. Jurgeleit had the day off this past Wednesday. He noticed he had the option to pick up a flight with his uncle.

“I was going through flights that haven’t been picked up yet or assigned. I saw his name on a flight that needed a captain. I was on a day off. I thought, “Huh, I’ll just surprise him and show up, and we’ll go flying together,” Jurgeleit says.

Denker says it was inevitable they would fly together at some point, but there are a lot of pilots that fly for Horizon and it might have taken a while. He says he felt very proud when he saw his nephew’s name pop up on his schedule.

“We meet in the crew room. Big hug and catch up a little bit,” Denker says. “Pretty shortly thereafter it’s down to business. While he’s my nephew, once we start in the activity of preparing for the flight and actually getting on the flight deck, he becomes, instead of my nephew, he becomes my captain.

Aside from some maintenance delays at the start, Denker and Jurgeleit say the flight went smoothly.

Denker says he is thankful that they had the opportunity to fly together.