'There's something on the runway': New report includes firsthand accounts of plane crash that killed 2 in Nanwalek
May 14—A new federal report provides firsthand accounts of the moments before a fatal plane crash in Nanwalek last month that killed the pilot and a passenger.
The crash of the Smokey Bay Air Cessna T207 on April 28 killed 48-year-old Homer resident Daniel Bunker, the pilot, and 37-year-old Anchorage resident Jenny Irene Miller, a well-known artist and photographer originally from Nome. A male passenger was seriously injured.
The afternoon flight was a regularly scheduled trip from Homer to Nanwalek, a village on Kachemak Bay just under 30 miles southwest of Homer.
Investigators have said it appeared Bunker was coming in for a landing when he decided to go around and try again after spotting something, most likely a dog, on the village's short runway. The plane could be seen banking sharply left before going out of control and spiraling to the ground.
Some witnesses on the ground said they saw a dog on the runway when the plane was on final approach, according to a National Transportation Safety Board preliminary report released Wednesday.
A pilot in a second Smokey Bay Airplane a few miles behind Bunker recalled hearing him say over the radio, "'I'm going around, there's something on the runway,' just before the accident," lead investigator Mitchell Rasmussen wrote in the report.
The report marks the agency's first official description of the incident. Any probable cause finding isn't expected to be released until next year.
The plane departed Homer with three occupants as well as passenger baggage and mail on board, according to the report.
The surviving passenger, interviewed at an Anchorage hospital, described approaching Nanwalek Airport from the north and over the village, the report said.
The passenger recalled the plane was "offset to the right of the runway centerline on final approach" before it entered a sharp, steeper than normal left banking turn and then went out of control, Rasmussen wrote.
The plane came to rest on the beach about 350 feet northwest of the approach end of the airport runway, according to the report.
Local residents and first responders pulled the wreckage to higher ground as the tide rose. They called 911 to report the crash just before 2 p.m., then provided help. Some administered CPR while others removed mail and cargo. Authorities and medical evacuation helicopters arrived more than an hour later.
The Nanwalek airport has only 850 feet of usable runway, state transportation officials say.
The most recent aviation incident at the airport, in 2016, involved the same Smokey Bay Air plane destroyed in the April crash. Three passengers and the pilot swam to safety after the plane went down offshore. The pilot later described a wind shift that caused him to run out of runway.
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