A charter plane crashed in western Alaska, one of the most remote areas of the United States, killing all eight people on board. According to the first information released by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA, the US authority that manages civil aviation), it was a Cessna 441, a twin-engine turboprop operated by the Security Aviation company, which took off from Anchorage and headed for Cape Newenham, about 720 km away.
The accident occurred around 12.15pm (local time, 10.15pm in Italy) yesterday, Thursday 20 August, when the plane was now close to its destination. There were two pilots and six passengers on board, according to what Clint Johnson, head of the National Transportation Safety Board for Alaska, the US federal body responsible for investigating transport accidents, told the Associated Press.
The causes of the accident are not yet known: the plane crashed near Cape Newenham airport, an air force landing strip and one of the long-range radar sites that make up the surveillance network of the Alaskan skies. These facilities serve to track aircraft operating in the state’s airspace and along its borders, a delicate task in a particularly large region like this and above all strategically important. This is why only military and authorized charter flights can land at this airport.
According to data from the National Weather Service, at the time of the accident there was fog on the landing strip: just before noon, visibility was poor, less than 800 feet (about 240 meters). As reported by FAA maps, the airport’s gravel runway is nearly 1,200 meters long and sits on the slope of a mountain more than 700 meters high, where steep terrain has been reported on both sides and at the southern end of the runway.
The flight, the authorities explained, was a civil charter under contract: it had been chartered by the US Army Corps of Engineers and the victims included two employees of the organization, whose families have already been informed.
