we took the crew down to rest. the crew day was going to be exhausted at 6:00 in the morning and we were prepared to bring in another crew to replace them. we extended their duty base and in addition, cooperated with the coast guard resources to move that direction for assistance. at first light, the apock, air national guard members in the helicopter lifted into the clouds and managed to get within access points and get rescue personnel on the ground and start assisting the survivors of the crash. coast guard in conjunction with the weather prohibited more than one aircraft operating at a time. they worked and pulled four survivors from the wreckage. transported them back to dillingham and have loaded them onto c130 s coast guard assets
it looks like the best we have so far is that at 7:00 p.m., we had information that there were good samaritan aircraft in the area conducting a search. at 19:30 they founded downed aircraft. that s about as close as we can get. [ inaudible ] i don t know. [ inaudible ] who we don t know that. ticke i can tell you a trial frame. most of the time we receive an airplane accident it s usually because a locater beacon has gone off. in this case, that was not the case. the aircraft was reported over due in the dillingham area. they facilitated the search and
imagine, has been very, very intense. compounded by the weather extremes we ve had to face. let me start with first of all our rescue coordination center was notified of a downed aircraft about 7:30 last night. there were good samaritans in the area that spotted the wreckage of the aircraft and confirmed that it was on a mountainside just north of dillingham about 17 miles. the rescue coordination center immediatelily rerouted national guard assets that were on another rescue mission and they headed that direction. weather going through lake clark pass required the refueling attempts during the darkening hours and getting the aircraft into dillingham. the crew set into dillingham. the weather settled on to the crash site that prohibited any rescue in the equal.
assets and capabilities were, we realized due to the location and remoteness and due to the weather and rain, the rescue efforts were beyond our capabilities. therefore, requests were made of the alaska national guard to step in with air access. primary responsibility of the alaska is going to be support, to the national transportation safety board. and scene assessment, scene security, as well as working with the medical examiners office for the removal and identification of the deceased aboard the aircraft. that s our primary responsibility. the rescue and search efforts that we conducted are ongoing on and we re not able to release any names of the persons aboard
cooperated local aircraft. breaking news in a fox news alert. associated press quotes a nasa spokesman saying the former nasa chief executive sean o keefe did indeed the plane crash in alaska last night. earlier i reported reuters news agency had a source telling them both sean o keefe and his son, both of whom were on the fishing trip with the late senator stevens survived. now a nasa spokesman says sean o keefe survived the alaska plane crash. that s as crows to confirming as anything that we have. fox news can t independently confirm this but we re getting pretty sure sean o keefe survived and his son as well. the nasa spokesman has not comment on that. we re waiting on the next bulletin from the associated press on this matter.