There were no fatalities after a Dehavilland Beaver float plane crashed Monday afternoon on Mirror Lake south of Kokhanok [Iliamna Lake]. The Beaver had 6 passengers and 1 pilot onboard and was leaving the area after a day’s fishing on Moraine Creek. Mitchell Gallo is a senior air safety investigator with the NTSB.
“It occurred during the airplane’s takeoff run. It ended up onshore, that’s where it impacted not too far in,” Gallo said. “And we’re going to be talking to the pilot and passengers at some later point. We’re going to be looking at the wreckage and hopefully we’ll get some good data, if any, if there was a GPS available on board. So we can use that for any performance calculations. So we’re gonna go back and see what happened, and I think we’ll get a good resolution to it”
Gallo said the Beaver crashed upright, not far in from the edge of Mirror Lake.
Four out of the seven on-board were injured. The Rescue Coordination Center launched an HH 60 Pave Hawk helicopter and an HC-130 fixed wing aircraft out of Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, which arrived on scene a little past 8 p.m., about four hours after the crash. One of the four injured passengers was flown directly to Providence Hospital in Anchorage, and the other three taken back to JBER.
A representative of Rapids Creek Lodge in King Salmon said the crash happened as guests were being picked up from a standard day of sport fishing on Moraine Creek. The lodge said they believed one of the four injured had already been released, and the others were listed in stable or better condition.
Mirror Lake is in a remote area of Katmai on the Alaska Peninsula in between Iliamna Lake and King Salmon.
