A small plane went down in shallow water near a remote Alaska coastal community on Wednesday, killing all four people aboard, officials said.
The aircraft, identified as a Piper PA-24-260, had departed Merrill Field Airport in Anchorage and was bound for the airport in Seldovia when it crashed at about 1:18 p.m., according to a statement from the Alaska Department of Public Safety.
Seldovia’s airport is located roughly 136 miles southwest of Anchorage.
“Alaska State Troopers were notified that a small plane had crashed in the Seldovia Slough,” the department said in its statement.
Authorities sent a helicopter crew from Anchorage to the scene, while additional troopers traveled by boat from Anchor Point.
After the crash, the plane was fully submerged in about 15 feet of water in Seldovia Slough near the shoreline, said Clint Johnson, chief of the National Transportation Safety Board’s Alaska region.
Troopers could not immediately access the wreckage and had to wait for the tide to recede.
When the water level dropped at around 6:30 p.m., troopers reached the aircraft and recovered the bodies of the four adult victims.
The bodies will be sent to the state medical examiner’s office for autopsy. The victims’ names will be released once next of kin are notified, according to the Alaska Department of Public Safety.
It remains unclear what may have caused the crash.
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the crash.
This comes after another plane crashed last week at a remote military site in western Alaska, killing all eight people on board.
That aircraft had been making its second runway approach in heavy fog, and its pilots were struggling to see the gravel airstrip, according to officials.
In that incident, the Cessna’s two pilots were flying solely by instruments when the plane crashed.
Regulations required that the pilots abort their first landing attempt because of the lack of visibility, and the plane crashed on its second attempt, about one-third of a mile from the runway.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
