Alaska Plane Crash: Remote Mid-Air Collision Kills 5

An Alaska plane crash killed five people Wednesday morning when two small planes collided in mid air over a remote, inaccessible area.

The crash site is about 375 miles west of Anchorage in an area of western Alaska reachable only by helicopter, The Associated Press said.

The cause of the crash was unknown, CNN reported.

The mid-air collision of a Hageland Aviation Cessna 208 Caravan and a Renfro's Alaskan Adventures Piper PA-18 Super Cub happened in sunny skies about six miles northwest of Russian Mission, the Alaska Dispatch News reported.

The victims were identified as Cessna pilot Harry Wrase, 48, and passengers Steven Paul Andrew, 32, and Aaron Jay Minock, 21, along with Piper pilot Zach Justin Babat, 44, and passenger Jeff Thomas Burruss, 40.

The National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration are investigating the crash.

"Ultimately what we are trying to do is to see how the airplanes came together," Clint Johnson, NTSB lead investigator for Alaska told the Dispatch. "What we want to do is to see if either one of these airplanes was able to see one another, either electronically or visually."

The Alaska Rescue Coordination Center received a report of an overdue aircraft at about 11 a.m. and a second report later in the day. Crews in another airplane spotted wreckage on the ground.

CNN described the crash site as an area of "rolling hills and heavy vegetation with an elevation between 600 to 800 feet."

A string of crashes in 2013 and 2014 placed Hageland under close scrutiny, the Dispatch reported, but improvements have been made, and Johnson said the company's troubles are "in the past."

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