Plane Crash in W. Alaska, 11 Reported Aboard

derg

Apparently a "terse" writer
Staff member
Authorities say a plane carrying a reported 11 people crashed Friday night near the western Alaska village of Saint Marys.

Alaska State Troopers spokeswoman Megan Peters says "there are survivors and we are working our best to get them help." She said she had no confirmation of any fatalities.

National Transportation Safety Board investigator Clint Johnson said the Cessna 208 was an Era Alaska flight. A man who answered the phone at Era Alaska's Saint Marys office said he couldn't provide any information. An Associated Press call to Era headquarters was not immediately returned.

Johnson says he believes a rescue crew from the village was the first to reach the crash site about four miles away. Saint Marys is about 470 miles from Anchorage.

The Cessna 208 had been reported missing on a flight from Bethel to Saint Mary's.
 
Weather was kind of crappy out there today.
Some of our stuff is on it's way out there now.
 
Going off the FB chatter this morning sounds like it was a guy named Terry Hansen. Guess he was the former chief pilot at Yute Air.

Sent from ZAN Sector 8
 
"Coffee made the call while giving CPR to her infant son, Wyatt, who died."

"Forty to 50 local residents on foot and on snowmobiles began a search for the wreck."

"Hansen, the pilot, was a Navy veteran who served four tours of duty in Vietnam, according to a biography he posted online for his high school class. After his service, he returned to Iowa to attend school, worked as an accountant until 1977, and then moved to Montana, where he owned and operated a whitewater rafting company. He learned to fly while working for a hospital in Whitefish, Mont. He was employed as a charter pilot in Montana until he decided, in 1995, to move to western Alaska, where he continued to fly commercially."

Just heartbreaking. So sorry for this awful event. Horrible. I hope they are able to determine what exactly happened.
 
Back
Top