Alaska Plane Crash Kills 10


Ten people were killed today when a plane crashed at an Alaska airport.

The National Transportation Board said that a small fixed-wing aircraft crashed at Soldotna Airport on Sunday afternoon. All 10 people on board the plane were killed.

Capt. Lesley Quelland said: “There were 10 souls on the aircraft and all perished.”

The victims have not yet been identified.

The NTSB said that the plane was a de Havilland Otter Air Taxi. Initial reports state that the plane was taking off from Soldotna Airport but crashed shortly after lift off. Meagan Peters of Alaska State Troopers told Fox News that the plane was completely engulfed in flames before firefighters arrived on the scene.

Soldotna police said in a statement: “First responders are attempting to remove the remains of the people that were on board as well as to identify the victims and notify family members.”

It is unclear what caused the crash. NTSB spokesman Eric Weis said that a team has been sent to the crash site to investigate.

The Huffington Post notes that air taxis are common in Alaska as many citizens require air travel to move around to the state’s remote locations. According to the Chicago Tribune, the plane that crashed in Alaska today was owned by the company Rediske Air.

The news comes just a day after another fatal plane crash in the United States. On Saturday afternoon, a Boeing 777 carrying around 300 passengers crashed at San Francisco airport. The plan hit the runway tail first and then “cartwheeled” end over end until it came to a stop on its belly.

Two people were killed during that incident.

 

[Image Via Gennady Pozdeev / Shutterstock.com]

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