A plane crash yesterday in Alaska resulted in the deaths of all 10 people on board, counting 9 passengers and the pilot.
A National Transportation Safety Board investigator said today that the Havilland DCHC3 Otter plane was taking off at Soldotna Municipal Airport in Alaska on just after 11 a.m. on Sunday morning, but crashed on the runway, according to ABC News.
At the Soldotna airport, just south of Anchorage on the Kenai Peninsula, the fixed-wing aircraft burst into flames. They engulfed its body and killing all passengers, according to Megan Peters, an Alaska State Trooper.
According to The New York Times, Roy Browning, deputy chief of Central Emergency Services said a team of firefighters arrived within minutes, but after the 10 minutes it took to extinguish the flames, all 9 passengers on board and the pilot were already dead.
Captin Lesley Quelland on the same service team as Browning said, “We saw the plume immediately when we left the station,” according to Time. The black cloud rising from the wreckage was visible from over three miles away at the fire station, suggesting the large magnitude of the blazing fire.
The single propeller aircraft, owned by Rediske Air, was flown by pilot and co-owner of the company, Walter Rediske. The 42-year-old pilot was reported to have been highly experienced and the crash to be a tragic accident.
The National Transportation Safety board arrived today at the scene of the wreckage to investigate the cause of the crash. Weather is not believed to have been a major contributor.
Both the passengers’ intended destination and the identities of the victims remains unknown at this time. The Soldotna Police Department released that the remains of all 10 victims were sent to the State Medical Examiner’s Office in Anchorage Sunday evening for autopsies and identifications.