3 killed, 7 injured in Alaska plane crash

Three people have died and seven were injured in a plane crash on the way to a remote fishing spot in Alaska.

A spokesperson with the National Transportation Safety Board said two of the injured were in critical condition.

The aircraft was a De Havilland DHC-3 Turbine Otter, on floats, and belonged to the Rainbow King Lodge, where all three people killed were staying.

The crash happened just north of the Iliamna Airport, near Eastwind Lake.

Alaska State Troopers say the deceased are 80-year-old Tony W. Degroot of Hanford, California, 70-year-old James P. Fletcher of Clovis, California, and 69-year-old James Specter of Shavertown, Pennsylvania. The bodies have been sent for autopsy to the state medical examiner’s office.

They wrote: “Dr. Jim Fletcher was killed in a plane crash this morning while on a fishing trip in Alaska”. Calls to the business went unanswered.

The Alaska Air National Guard dispatched an HC-130 aircraft, which flew through low clouds, rain and gray skies to reach the survivors, Eagerton said. The five were first flown to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, then transported by ambulance to a hospital or hospitals, Guard Staff Sgt. Their names were not released.

“We went out and turned all our vehicle lights on, and a few minutes later we could see the light from the plane wing”, Anelon said. “Most of the community in Iliamna-Newhalen were on scene to hike the roughly 400 yards through the tundra to get to the crash site”, Minnick said.

A similar incident in June left nine people dead.

The sightseeing plane crashed on a steep cliff about 25 miles from Ketchikan, killing the pilot and eight cruise ship passengers.

Another Otter was involved in an August 2010 crash in Alaska that killed former U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens and four others.

Allen Kenitzer, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said it was the ninth fatal crash in Alaska this year.