The Anchorage Police Department is investigating three Saturday collisions in which two people were killed and several more critically injured, including a head-on crash that shut down the Seward Highway for hours and the death of a pedestrian hit by a car in Fairview.
The first crash happened around 12:15 a.m. Saturday, when a Chevy Suburban driving inbound on the Glenn Highway between Boniface Parkway and Bragaw Street crossed a center median and slammed head-on into a Ford Focus.
The driver of the Focus was pronounced dead at the scene, Anchorage police said in a statement Sunday. The victim has not been identified.
Police were still trying to determine Sunday what led to the Suburban crossing the median; the road was closed for several hours during the on-scene investigation.
Less than three hours later, at about 2:50 a.m., a Chevy Malibu driving south on Gambell Street in Anchorage's Fairview neighborhood hit a pedestrian who was "in the roadway in an area not designated for pedestrian crossing," police said in a separate statement.
The pedestrian died of his injuries after being taken to a hospital. Police did not identify him.
Then, at about 10:30 p.m., a BMW driving northbound on the Seward Highway at Mile 76 "pulled out to pass another vehicle and struck a Ford Ranger head on," police said, and that "multiple victims" were taken to a hospital by helicopter with critical injuries.
Television station KTUU reported that firefighters said four victims had been transported from the scene.
The highway was closed while police investigated; they announced it had been reopened by about 3:50 a.m. Sunday.
"Alcohol is suspected to have been a factor," in that crash, police wrote in a statement Sunday.
Traffic investigators are still probing all three incidents. No one has been arrested or charged in any of the crashes, and police did not identify any of the drivers Sunday.