4 dead in Bethel Airlines plane crash in St. Mary's

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Four people were killed in a plane crash in southwest Alaska on Sunday night.

According to the National Transportation Safety Board, the pilot and three passengers died when the Cessna 207 they were on board crashed near St. Mary's.

“An NTSB investigator is traveling to the accident scene. Once on site, the investigator will begin documenting the accident scene and examining the aircraft,” an NTSB spokesperson wrote in an email.

According to police, Alaska State Troopers were notified of the plane's delay at 11:15 p.m. Sunday. Troopers stationed in St. Mary's went to the last confirmed location of the Cessna and found the wreckage and four crash victims about a half mile from the runway.

The NTSB contacted Bethel Airline Yute Commuter Services about the crash. Yute identified two of the victims – the pilot and a passenger – as off-duty employees Monday morning. 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 in their investigation,” the airline said in a statement. “All of us at Yute are deeply saddened by this tragedy and our sincere condolences go out to the families of the four people affected.”

Sunday's event followed a week in which several people were killed in plane crashes in Alaska.

Two men were killed in a crash on the Kenai Peninsula on Friday morning. The next day, an Anchorage man crashed an experimental plane in a Wasilla neighborhood. He did not survive.

Clint Johnson, NTSB regional director in Alaska, said Monday morning that the federal investigator was expected to arrive in St. Mary's the next day.

“Our office here was very, very busy, so we had to call in backup from the south to have the investigator come over and help us,” Johnson said.

Johnson was commenting on the recent series of plane crashes that killed seven people within three days.

“Obviously we will be looking at the weather as a cause of all these accidents,” Johnson said by phone. “But you have to remember that a lot of people are flying at this time of year. That is usually and historically our busiest time and unfortunately that is the case this year as well.”

Robert Katz, a Texas flight instructor and commercial pilot, analyzes airplane crashes in his spare time.

He became alarmed when he read that the pilot in Sunday's crash had requested special visual flight rules (VFR) clearance, suggesting they were attempting to fly to St. Mary's in weather conditions generally considered too unsafe for operations, such as visibility of less than three miles.

“There are no lights, no roads to follow, nothing like that,” Katz said in a phone interview Monday. “So the pilot has to be very, very good at navigating, and dedicated VFR is just a recipe for disaster.”

This story has been updated with additional information.

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