A small plane crashed into the water in Alaska on Aug. 26, killing four people on board, authorities said.
Alaska State Troopers received reports that the plane, a Piper PA-24, went down at about 1:18 p.m. local time. The small airplane crashed into the Seldovia Slough, a shallow waterway off Seldovia, a city of about 235 residents on the Kenai Peninsula of Alaska. It was completely submerged, officials said.
At 6:30 p.m. once the tide had gone out, troopers were able to remove the bodies of four deceased adults, the Alaska Department of Public Safety said. Their identities have not yet been released.
The plane had been heading to Seldovia from Merrill Field Airport in Anchorage about 140 miles away, DPS said.
Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan said he would be briefed by the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board.
“Julie and I are praying for the families and loved ones of those who were killed today in a plane crash near Seldovia. These tragedies are heartbreaking and unacceptable, which is why aviation safety and infrastructure in Alaska continue to be a top focus of mine,” Sullivan said in a post on social media.
The crash comes less than a week after an Aug. 20 plane crash at a remote radar site in western Alaska near Cape Newenham killed eight people. Authorities said visibility was so poor that pilots could not see the ground.