Alaska Pilot’s $95,000 Cessna on the Line for Passenger’s Beer

Aviator asks U.S. Supreme Court to decide if forfeiting his airplane is an excessive fine.

Ryan Ewing

Tuesday, September 02, 2025 at 11:30 AM ET

Verified

Edited By:

Travis Tingle

A Cessna 206 floatplane takes off at Priest Lake, Idaho, with Chimney Rock and the Selkirk Mountains in the background. [Shutterstock/FlyIdaho]

Key Takeaways:

Alaska bush pilot Ken Jouppi faces forfeiture of his $95,000 plane after being convicted of a misdemeanor for his passenger carrying beer into a dry village, with state courts upholding the seizure.
Jouppi is now petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that the permanent taking of his aircraft for a relatively minor offense violates the Eighth Amendment's Excessive Fines Clause.
The case seeks to clarify how proportionality should be assessed in forfeiture cases and is seen as a significant challenge against potential government overreach through fines and forfeitures.

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For more than a decade, longtime Alaska bush pilot Ken Jouppi has been locked in a legal battle with the state of Alaska over his 1969 Cessna U206D. At issue: whether the state can permanently take his $95,000 airplane after troopers discovered his passenger carrying beer into a dry village.

On April 3, 2012, Jouppi was preparing to fly a passenger from Fairbanks to Beaver, an Alaska community that voted to ban alcohol in 2004. Hidden in her luggage were three cases of Budweiser and Bud Light. State troopers intercepted the flight before takeoff, charging Jouppi with knowingly transporting alcohol into a dry village. He was convicted of a misdemeanor and fined $1,500—the statutory minimum—while serving three days in jail.