Alaska aviator Orin Seybert, who founded and guided Peninsula Airways into Alaska’s largest regional airline, died Friday.

Or, as his family said in a statement, he took “his last flight west.”

He was 87 years old.

Seybert founded the airline at the age of 18 in 1955, in Pilot Point, southwest Alaska, where he lived. He started it with his first airplane, a 1946 Taylorcraft. The goal was to fly town residents to hospitals, his family said.

PenAir, as it later became known, operated for 65 years. Orin stepped away from the business around 2007, when PenAir flew to 45 communities and operated three dozen planes, including 30-passenger SAABs, according to an article at the time.

PenAir entered bankruptcy in 2017, after the company began offering flights to some locations in the lower 48 states.

It was eventually sold to a Lower 48 investor in 2020, said Danny Seybert, Orin’s former CEO and son who took over the company from his father.

“Orin was a true public servant serving his fellow Alaskans,” the family statement said. “Orin is a proud recipient of the Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award, as well as a member of the Alaska Aviation Hall of Fame, among many other accolades.”

PenAir’s fleet included American-made Grumman aircraft, such as the Goose and Widgeon amphibious aircraft that could reach some of the most remote corners of the state.

Seybert was known as the “world’s best Grumman pilot” and flew his personal Widgeon throughout Alaska for the company, the family said.

Orin also was a leader and president of the Alaska Aviation Museum next to Lake Hood in Anchorage, where he helped grow, his family said.

“Orin was a great historian, who shared many stories, pieces of history and aviation knowledge with the museum for its preservation,” the family said.

He was a husband, father, brother and grandfather to more than 66 immediate family members, the family said.

During large family gatherings, he often laughed and exclaimed, “I am responsible for this disaster,” the family said.