ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Four people died on Sunday night in a plane crash while flying in Southwest Alaska.
According to the National Transportation Safety Board, the pilot and three passengers died when the Cessna 207 airplane they were aboard crashed close to St. Mary’s.
“An NTSB investigator is traveling to the scene. Once on site, the investigator will begin the process of documenting the scene and examining the aircraft,” an NTSB spokesperson wrote in an email.
An overdue aircraft at 11:15 p.m. Sunday was reported to Alaska State Troopers, according to troopers. St. Mary’s-based troopers went to the last confirmed location of the Cessna and found the wreckage and four crash victims about 1/2 mile away from the runway.
The NTSB contacted the Bethel airline Yute Commuter Services about the crash. Yute on Monday morning identified two of the victims — the pilot and one passenger — as employees who were off the clock. Yute identified the third and fourth victims as a former employee and someone on a personal trip, respectively.
“We will cooperate fully with the NTSB as it conducts its investigation,” the airline said in a statement. “All of us at Yute are deeply saddened by this tragedy, and our hearts go out to the families of the four individuals involved.”
Sunday’s event follows a week in which multiple people died in Alaska plane crashes.
Two men were killed in a crash Friday morning on the Kenai Peninsula. The following day, an Anchorage man crashed an experimental aircraft in a Wasilla neighborhood. He did not survive.
Clint Johnson, NTSB Alaska Regional Chief, said Monday morning the federal investigator is expected to arrive in St. Mary’s within the next day.
“Our office has been very, very busy here, so we’re having to call in some relief from Down South so that investigator is coming up to give us a hand,” Johnson said.
Johnson weighed in on the recent spate of crashes that killed seven people in three days.
“Obviously, we’re going to be looking at the weather for all of these accidents,” Johnson said by phone. “But you got to keep in mind that there’s a lot of folks flying this time of the year. This is typically and historically our busy time, and it’s ringing true this year, unfortunately.”
Robert Katz, a Texas flight instructor and commercial pilot, analyzes plane crashes in his spare time.
He became concerned upon reading that the pilot in Sunday’s crash requested Special Visual Flight Rules (VFR) clearance, which indicates they were attempting to fly to St. Mary’s in weather conditions typically deemed too unsafe to operate in, like less than three miles of visibility.
“There’s no lights, you know, no roads to follow, anything like that,” Katz said in a phone interview on Monday. “So the pilot has to be very, very good with his navigation, and a special VFR is just a recipe for disaster.”
This story has been updated with additional information.
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