‘No survivors’ after plane carrying 2 people crashes into Alaska river
A plane carrying two people crashed into an icy Alaska river and burst into flames on Tuesday with “no survivors” found, police said.
The Douglas DC-4 Skymaster went down at 10:03 a.m. in the Tanana River just minutes after taking off from Fairbanks International Airport, according to investigators.
“The aircraft slid into a steep hill on the bank of the river where it caught fire,” Alaska State Troopers said in a release.
Two people were on board, but no “survivors have been located.”
The inferno jumped onto the tree line that borders the Tanana and burned for several hours, sending black smoke billowing across the fields.
The plane had only been in the air for about eight minutes before it crashed.
Clint Johnson, chief of the National Transportation Safety Board’s Alaska regional office, said it remained unclear what happened in the time between the takeoff and the crash but the tower operator “saw a large plume of smoke.”
Information on where the plane was traveling was not immediately available.
The Federal Aviation Administration described the plane as a Douglas C-54, which is a military version of the Douglas DC-4.
The plane model was first commissioned during World War II, with numerous aircraft used during the Berlin Airlift of 1948 to 1949.
There are very few left in service, two of which are operated by Alaska Air Fuel.
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the crash.
With Post wires
