Print article JUNEAU A plane that crashed in Wrangell-St Elias National Park last month, killing two people, began a gradual right turn and a descent shortly before the accident, a preliminary report released Wednesday says. The report on the crash, which killed the pilot and passenger, was released by the National Transportation Safety Board. It offered few details. The flight was operated by Copper Valley Air Service, and the report cites an official with the company as saying it was a twice-weekly scheduled flight with a planned route from Gulkana to McCarthy to Dan Creek and back to Gulkana. The report states that the flight left Gulkana for McCarthy about 10:21 a.m. Feb. 4, and went down around 10:51 a.m. about 14 miles northeast of Chitina, which is southeast of Gulkana.
Print article A pilot from Anchorage and Glennallen and a passenger from out of state were the two people killed in a plane crash last week in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska State Troopers said Thursday. The Cessna 185 may have broken up in midair near Chitina on Feb. 4, according to a federal investigators. Pilot Christopher Maize, 45, and 36-year-old passenger Andrew Broders of Washington both died in the crash. The Alaska Rescue Coordination Center was notified about the crash just before noon when an emergency locator transmitter was activated from the Copper Valley Air Service plane. The crash was in a remote, mountainous area roughly 13 miles northeast of Chitina and in a wooded section of a gradual slope, troopers wrote in an online report.