Charter plane crash kills 8 in western Alaska
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JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) -- A plane that crashed at a remote military site in western Alaska, killing all eight people on board, was making its second runway approach in heavy fog when it lost contact, authorities said Friday.
The Cessna’s two pilots could not see the gravel airstrip and were flying solely by instruments when the plane crashed about midday Thursday, Clint Johnson, the National Transportation Safety Board’s Alaska region chief, told a virtual news conference.
Regulations required that they abort their first landing attempt because of the lack of visibility, he said, and the plane crashed on its second attempt, about one-third of a mile from the runway. The runway is surrounded by mountainous terrain on three sides, and the Federal Aviation Administration recommends pilots use GPS and other instruments when they land there.
On board were the pilots, two employees of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and four contractors. Two of the contractors were employees of Calista Brice, a collection of companies that perform construction, engineering, logistics and other work in remote areas. Calista Brice is a subsidiary of Calista Corp., an Alaska Native regional corporation.
The military has not said what work they were performing at the Cape Newenham Long Range Radar Site, about 450 miles west of Anchorage on Alaska’s southwest coast.
NTSB investigators were traveling to the scene Friday.
The radar site was built in the 1950s as part of a network designed to provide early warning of a missile attack by the Soviet Union. Today, it monitors the skies off the coast in the direction of Russia, North Korea and China.
Those on board were “dedicated professionals carrying out a vital mission in a demanding environment,” U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Robert Davis, commander of Alaskan Command, the Alaskan North American Aerospace Defense Command Region and Eleventh Air Force, said in a statement Thursday.
“This is a devastating loss for our military family and the communities we serve,” Davis said.
Johnson said search teams found the fragmented wreckage after the twin-engine Cessna 441, also known as a Cessna Conquest, lost contact. Its final flight path was captured by radar at the site, he said.