A C54D-DC airplane caught fire and crashed, killing both people on board, on its way to deliver over 3,000 gallons of fuel to a remote Alaska Native village.
One of the two pilots of a vintage military plane that was delivering heating oil to a remote Alaska Native village reported a fire on board shortly before the aircraft crashed and burned outside Fairbanks, killing both of them and leaving debris over a wide area, a federal transportation official said Wednesday.
Troopers said recovery efforts would resume Wednesday with the aid of cadaver dogs, but they noted that thin ice and open water on the river were making their efforts difficult. The pilots’ names have not been released. The partial remains that have been recovered will be sent to the State Medical Examiner’s Office in Anchorage for identification, troopers said. The roughly 80-year-old plane departed Fairbanks just before 10 a.m.
The plane that crashed Tuesday was built in Chicago around 1942 and saw service with the U.S. Army Air Force, the U.S. Navy and the Royal Air Force, before a California company took ownership in 1974, according to the Aerial Visuals Airframe Dossier website. It was later owned by companies in Arizona and Fairbanks, with Alaska Air Fuel taking it over in 2013.
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