Four people died in a plane crash in the Kenai Peninsula community of Seldovia on Wednesday, Aug. 26, state troopers said.
Troopers were alerted to the crash at around 1:18 p.m., according to a dispatch. A Piper PA-24 had traveled to Seldovia from Merrill Field in Anchorage before it crashed.
Clint Johnson, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)’s chief for the Alaska region, said details were limited, and the pilot may have been taking off or on a go-around when the plane crashed.
“The airplane was taking off to the south, ended up crashing into what they refer to as a slough,” Johnson said. “The airplane was submerged in about 16 to 17 feet of water.”
Officials said troopers were able to recover the victims’ bodies from the wreckage at about 6:30 p.m. after the tide had fallen. Pilot Eric Middlebrook, 68, of Anchorage was found dead with three passengers from California: Ronald Schmidt, 65, Lance Schmidt, 20, and Daniel Simons, 82.
Middlebrook is a former mayor of Bethel. He served in that role in 2008 and again from October 2010 to October 2011. Former Bethel Mayor Mark Springer said Middlebrook was well-respected, and the go-to guy for refrigeration work on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.
“His job basically was to keep the ice cream frozen in the village stores,” Springer said. “He had his own airplane, and he would fly out to the villages to do refrigeration repair.”
It’s not clear what caused the Aug. 26 crash.
Johnson with the NTSB said an investigator is heading to Seldovia on Aug. 27. He said Seldovia’s tides will impact the investigation.
“His plan is to be able to get out there, document it to the best of his ability, while the tide's out, and then go into the wreckage recovery,” Johnson said. “They'll sling that wreckage out of where it is, either take it back to the Seldovia Airport or take it right back to Homer, where we can continue our investigation.”
This is the second fatal plane crash in Alaska in less than a week. On Aug. 20, a charter plane carrying eight people crashed in the Cape Newenham Long Range Radar Site in Southwest Alaska during a second landing attempt. All eight people died in the crash.
This is a developing story.
Alaska Public Media’s Alena Naiden and KYUK’s Evan Erickson contributed reporting.