6 killed on Southwest Alaska commercial air-taxi flight

By MAUREEN CLARK The Associated Press

Six people were found dead Sunday in the wreckage of a plane that crashed in the rugged terrain of Southwest Alaska.

An Army National Guard helicopter reached the site near Music Lake, about 250 miles southwest of Anchorage, Sunday afternoon and found no survivors, Alaska State Troopers spokesman Tim Despain said.

By Sunday evening, the bodies had been removed from the wreckage and taken to Iliamna for positive

identification. The names of the dead will not be available until family members are notified, Despain said.

The Cessna 206, operated by Iliamna Air Taxi, set out Saturday afternoon for the 50-minute flight from Iliamna to Koliganek but never made it. The crash site is about halfway between the two small villages.

The plane was reported overdue at about 6:40 p.m. Saturday.

There were five passengers and a pilot, Despain said. A woman who answered the phone at Iliamna Air Taxi on Sunday afternoon said the company had no comment.

A search began Saturday night but had to be halted because of heavy snow and whiteout conditions. The Alaska National Guard, state troopers and volunteers resumed the search Sunday morning.

The cause of the crash is not yet known.

When the plane took off from Iliamna, skies were cloudy with visibility of 10 miles, wind at 7 mph and temperatures in the upper 30s, according to the National Weather Service.

News of the crash hit hard in Koliganek, a close-knit Native village of about 200 people on the Nushagak River.

"I don't think anybody wants to talk. Things aren't good here right now," said a woman who answered the phone for the village public safety officer, who was not available.

According to National Transportation Safety Board records dating back to 1983, Iliamna Air Taxi has not had any other fatal accidents. A Cessna 206 operated by the carrier flipped over on landing in Kamishak Bay in August 1986, and a Cessna 207A operated by the company struck a snow berm after aborting takeoff from Nondalton in January of 1990. No one was injured in either accident, according to the NTSB

Link

http://www.adn.com/stories/T00020777.html

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), February 07, 2000

Answers

Also see the post here.

-- (daveO@quedfire.net), February 07, 2000.

None of this is y2k related though. None of the refinery problems and spills is either. Or the $2.40 diesel fuel in the northeast.

Right Cherri?

-- (@ .), February 07, 2000.

Yeah, Y2K is just a big hoax. Try telling that to the families of the six people who were killed.

-- (daveO@quedfire.net), February 07, 2000.