Eight aboard aircraft crashes near western Alaska radar station
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A charter aircraft carrying eight people crashed on Thursday while approaching a remote radar site near Cape Newenham in western Alaska, officials said. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the incident, involving a Security Aviation flight, which highlights the risks associated with small charter aircraft serving remote and sparsely populated parts of the state.
Clint Johnson, the NTSB's Alaska region chief, confirmed to the Associated Press that two pilots and six passengers were aboard the aircraft, which had departed from Anchorage. He said he did not immediately have information on the condition of those on board, and further details on the cause of the crash have yet to be released.
- Charter plane with eight aboard crashed near Cape Newenham, Alaska
- Two pilots and six passengers were on the Security Aviation flight
- NTSB investigating; conditions of those aboard not yet confirmed
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Charter flights are a routine way of reaching remote parts of Alaska, where many communities and facilities have no road access and depend on small aircraft for transport and supplies. Cape Newenham is the site of a remote radar station in the sparsely populated western part of the state, the kind of isolated outpost these charter services regularly fly to.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is the US federal agency responsible for investigating civil aviation accidents. Its Alaska regional office, led by Clint Johnson, handles the unusually high number of small-aircraft incidents in the state, where flying conditions and remote terrain make crashes more common than in many other parts of the country.
Security Aviation is the charter company that operated the flight involved. Incidents like this draw attention to the wider safety record of small charter operators serving Alaska's remote communities and infrastructure sites, since these flights often carry workers and supplies to places with few other transport options.
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Originally published by Fox News as “Charter plane with 8 aboard crashes near remote radar site in western Alaska”.