Two dead in Piper Cub crash near Nabesna, troopers say

Two people died when a Piper Cub crashed after taking off from a dirt airstrip in the Nabesna area near Tok, Alaska State Troopers said. Troopers received the report Thursday, Sept. 17, at 7:51 p.m. Both occupants were confirmed dead. Their names will be released once next of kin are notified. The National Transportation Safety Board has been notified and will investigate the cause. Troopers have not identified the specific strip within the Nabesna area where the crash occurred, according to dispatch AK26092734.

Not all of the Nabesna country lies inside Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve: the road crosses into federal land at Mile 2.7, and private land adjoins much of it. Hunters, guides and cabin users there depend on unimproved strips, gravel bars and sandbars. Three airstrips are improved, meaning maintained: McCarthy by the state, May Creek and Chisana by the park.

At Orange Hill, southeast of Nabesna, the Park Service lists a 300-foot gravel strip on a Nabesna River sandbar with no FAA identifier, meaning it appears on no aeronautical chart. The agency says a bend in the river shortens it each summer, that a former airstrip in the Nabesna River valley is gone, and that pilots must land there at their own risk.

Two men died in a Cessna 185 crash near a moose camp outside Aniak on Sept. 15: pilot Nicholas Peters, 34, of Eagle River, and passenger John "Jack" Ervin, 50, of Missouri. Three people died in a plane crash at the Dan Creek airstrip near McCarthy on July 27.