Growing up in Minot, N.D., Landsiedel was a standout athlete, recruited to play football at Minot State University. After a year there, he changed course (and schools), transferring to Montana State University, just outside Yellowstone, to study biology. “Being outside with wildlife felt like home,” he said.
In 2022, Landsiedel joined the Alaska Department of Fish and Game as Area Wildlife Biologist, based in Dillingham. He trained as a pilot, knowing that there are few roads in Alaska, and scientists must often travel by air. “To work in Alaska as a wildlife biologist is to accept hardship as part of the job: blizzards, isolation, and a daily intimacy with life, death, and the difficult questions in between,” wrote conservationist Rhett Ayers Butler. For Landsiedel, “it was not only worth it — it was the dream.”
Landsiedel kept in touch with family and friends, sending stories and photos, describing his excitement: “Man, I’ve been having a blast the last couple of weeks,” he said in a recent message. “Flying around counting bears, catching caribou calves, finding wolverines and gyrfalcons, playing with the camera. I feel so lucky to work up here and with these animals.”
On the morning of July 25, state troopers were summoned to the airport in Dillingham for a fatal crash. Landsiedel was the only occupant of the Piper J3C-65 Cub, and was declared dead at the scene. The crash cause has not yet been determined, but interviews with witnesses “consistently” mention “loss of engine power and then a loss of control after that,” said Clint Johnson, NTSB Alaska Regional Office chief. John Henry Landsiedel V was 33.