One of the two pilots of a vintage military plane delivering kerosene to a remote Alaska Native village reported a fire on board shortly before the plane crashed and burst into flames outside Fairbanks, killing two people. Both died and left debris scattered over a wide area, federal authorities said. Transportation officials made the announcement on Wednesday.
Clint Johnson, director of the National Transportation Safety Board’s Alaska regional office, said the pilot radioed shortly after takeoff Tuesday about an emergency on board. He said they were trying to return to Fairbanks International Airport when they lost contact.
The C54D-DC aircraft, a military version of the World War II-era Douglas DC-4 aircraft, crashed about 11 miles outside Fairbanks. It crashed into a steep hill, slid down an embankment and onto the banks of the Tanana River, where it burst into flames. No survivors were found, Alaska State Police said.
Alaska law enforcement responds to World War II-era plane crash with two people on board
Police said recovery efforts would resume Wednesday with the help of cadaver dogs, but noted that thin ice and open water on the river were making work difficult. The pilot’s name has not been released.
Police said some of the recovered bodies will be sent to the State Medical Examiner’s Office in Anchorage for identification.
The nearly 80-year-old plane left Fairbanks just before 10 a.m., carrying 3,200 gallons of heating oil and was scheduled to head to Kobuk, an Inupiat village of fewer than 200 people about 300 miles northwest of Fairbanks.
On April 23, 2024, a Douglas C-54 Skymaster plane crashes into the Tanana River outside Fairbanks, Alaska, causing smoke to rise. (Gary Content, via AP)
Mike Emmers was working in his office at Rosie Creek Farm, Alaska’s only outdoor cannabis farm, when he heard an explosion and looked out the window to see the plane on fire.
“I knew it was going to go down. I just didn’t know where it was going to go down,” he said.
Video from a farm surveillance camera showed the plane flying until one of its four engines – the one closest to the fuselage – exploded. The plane then listed and descended rapidly.
Emmers tried to call 911 but was unable to get through, so he called the police command line instead. He, his son, and his neighbor went to the crash site and peered around the corner of the ice shelf to witness the huge flames.
“I didn’t recognize it as a plane,” he said. “There was debris everywhere, all the trees were burned down, and there were fires everywhere.”
As he climbed the hill, he encountered more debris, which he described as a mix of airplane parts, clothing and personal items. The fire was still burning above the plane, and Emmers, worried that the wildfire would devastate her neighborhood, wore her sweatshirt to fight the flames to prevent them from spreading to more trees. I wanted it. First responders arrived about 15 minutes later.
Another witness, Gary Content, was sitting on his deck overlooking the river when he heard a loud explosion followed by a second explosion. While searching for the cause of the explosion, they saw a burning object on the river ice.
“I immediately thought it was the engine because it was on fire,” he said.
He watched for a minute or two as smoke rose into the air, “and a fireball was launched that overpowered all fireballs.”
Johnson said the C54D-DC Skymaster plane was carrying about 1,200 gallons of aviation fuel in addition to kerosene.
Delivering fuel to rural Alaska villages, which are remote and difficult to reach due to the state’s limited road network, is difficult and expensive. The Northwest Arctic Borough announced that Kobuk heating fuel will cost $15.45 per gallon in 2022.
Barges typically deliver fuel to coastal areas, according to the Alaska State Energy Agency. However, where barges cannot navigate or are not economically viable, air tankers transport fuel. And even that can be limited by ocean and river ice, water levels, and ice road usage.
The C54D-DC is the military version of the Douglas DC-4, a World War II-era aircraft. This plane supported the 1948 Berlin Airlift. In this airlift, the United States and Britain airlifted food and fuel into Allied-held areas after the Soviet blockade cut off the city.
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The plane that crashed Tuesday was built in Chicago around 1942 and served in the U.S. Army Air Force, U.S. Navy and Royal Air Force, before being owned by a California company in 1974, according to the Aerial Visuals Airframe Dossier website. It was then owned by Arizona and Fairbanks companies and was taken over by Alaska Air Fuel in 2013. The plane was rebuilt from 2018 to 2020.
Wasilla-based Alaska Air Fuel did not respond to a phone message seeking comment.
The NTSB dispatched three investigators to the accident scene.
