Plane carrying cruise passengers crashes in Alaska

A DHC-3 Otter carrying a pilot and 8 passengers from the MS. Westerdam crashed yesterday. The passengers were on a day excursion during a 7 day inside passage cruise round trip from Seattle.

The aircraft appears to have hit a mountain above Lake Ella near Ketchikan.

www.cnn.com...

a reply to: Zaphod58

Alaska is a treacherous place to fly. Planes go missing. Magnetic anomalies. Optical anomalies (you see mountain further or closer depending on your angle towards an air vortex bending the light like a lense).

Tough calls these always are, and surely a distressing bugger for everyone involved.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I met the pilot while i was working Kodiak, sad, sad, sad

a reply to: Zaphod58

Wow this is the same trip we take when we fly into Chignik AK for work , I take the boat and its a 7 day trip at 12 knots ,inside passage and cross over the gulf .

We pass cruse ships all the time though the passage and they even stop off in the harbor .

But let me tell you its rough flying out their ,one day the weather is good and within the hr it can go bad real quick .

Safe passage to all those who perished.

a reply to: Kapusta

Man I hate flying in small planes in Alaska. I would not like to do that repeatedly. Every time I've been up there it's terrifying to some degree. That's just me though. I feel pretty bad for those people.

a reply to: GoShredAK

yeah that's why i prefer taking the ship ,besides i get sea time anyway

They are reporting that it was a result of controlled flight into terrain...SAD!

a reply to: buddah6

That doesn't surprise me. That is a pretty common cause up in that region.