Area of ‘disturbance’ in Southeast Alaska marks apparent crash site of plane carrying 3 people

Authorities said Thursday that searchers several days earlier found the apparent crash site of a missing plane carrying a Haines man and two Yakutat residents flying from Juneau to Yakutat.

The 1948 Beechcraft Bonanza left Juneau on Saturday but never made it to Yakutat. Authorities identified the pilot as Samuel Wright, of Haines, and the passengers as Hans Munich and Tanya Hutchins, owners of Coastal Air Service in Yakutat.

A search that began Sunday in the area of Mount Crillon in the Fairweather Range was suspended late Monday.

Officials confirmed Thursday that the apparent discovery of the crash site was one of the factors that prompted the suspension.

The Civil Air Patrol on Monday “found an area of disturbance” in steep, mountainous terrain at about 10,000 feet in the area of Mount Crillon, said Lt. Cmdr. Mike Salerno, spokesman for the 17th Coast Guard District. A Coast Guard C-130 overflew the area, but cloud cover prevented the crew from seeing anything, Salerno said.

The search area was pinpointed by tracking data from the plane, federal officials said.

The track showed Wright taking off from Juneau and heading for Yakutat, only to veer toward Mount Crillon and end there, according to Clint Johnson, Alaska chief of the National Transportation Safety Board.

The track stopped “right on that snow-covered terrain where they found that disturbance,” Johnson said, describing the terrain as a massive icefield with numerous crevasses on the east side of the mountain. “They see this disturbance and then an avalanche that went down on top of it.”

The avalanche most likely originated from the plane’s initial impact point, he said.

It wasn’t immediately clear what caused the plane to veer en route to Yakutat, but weather will be one of the factors that investigations will examine. There are no plans to recover any wreckage, officials said.

Weather conditions around the time the plane was last tracked were reported to be generally poor, with fog, rain and gusty winds in the area, Salerno has said.

The National Transportation Safety Board is expected to release a first, preliminary report on the crash next week.

Correction: An earlier version of this story said that the apparent discovery of the crash site prompted the suspension of the search. The U.S. Coast Guard said it was one of the factors that led to the decision to suspend the search.