Four killed in Piper crash in Seldovia Slough; NTSB investigating

All four people aboard a small plane died Wednesday when the aircraft went down in the Seldovia Slough, sinking in shallow water near the shore of the remote coastal community.

The National Transportation Safety Board confirmed the investigation Thursday. "NTSB is investigating the Aug. 26 crash of a Piper PA-24-260 airplane near Seldovia, Alaska," the agency's newsroom account said.

Clint Johnson, the safety board's Alaska region chief, told The Associated Press in an account published Wednesday by the Winnipeg Free Press that the plane crashed just after taking off from the airport in Seldovia, about 136 miles southwest of Anchorage. The aircraft came to rest in roughly 15 feet of water in the slough near shore, Johnson said. State troopers waited Wednesday evening for the tide to recede before attempting to reach it. The Piper PA-24-260 had departed Merrill Field Airport in Anchorage, state authorities said in accounts published Thursday.

The crash is the second fatal one in Alaska in less than a week. Alaska News previously covered the Aug. 20 crash of a Security Aviation Cessna 441 on approach to the Cape Newenham Long Range Radar Site airstrip in western Alaska, which killed two pilots and six passengers.

Federal agencies have tracked Alaska's accident rate for years. A February 2020 safety board report cited by the Federal Aviation Administration found that from 2008 to 2017, Alaska's overall accident rate was 2.35 times higher than the rest of the United States, and its fatal accident rate was 1.34 times higher. The FAA has framed those numbers as a regional safety problem requiring targeted programs, not a series of isolated accidents.