One dead in commuter plane crash on Alaskan island

One person is dead after a plane went off a landing runway on Thursday in a small Alaska town near the Bering Sea called Unalaska, one of the nation’s busiest fishing ports.

Alaska State Troopers identified the victim of the crash as 38-year-old David Allan Oltman of Washington state.

As for the remaining passengers, 11 were brought to a local clinic with injuries ranging from minor to critical, according to a statement from the city of Unalaska. Seven of the patients arrived in an ambulance and four came in personal vehicles; one was to medevaced to Anchorage, the city said.

Just before 11 a.m. on Friday, the Unalaska/Dutch Harbor Airport remained closed, Meadow Bailey, communications director at the Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities, told USA TODAY. 

“National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration accident investigators are responding,” Bailey said earlier in an email.

Airplane wings are not always in the middle of the plane.
USA TODAY

The plane appeared to have been forced beyond its planned landing area by high winds the community has been experiencing recently, freelance photographer Jim Paulin, who witnessed the crash, told The Associated Press.

SOURCE maps4news.com/©HERE (Photo: USA TODAY)

Unalaska is about 825 miles west of Anchorage.

Contributing: The Associated Press; David Oliver, USA TODAY

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