Plane Crash

A preliminary National Transportation Safety Board report on a July 10 plane crash on a lake in Homer, which killed former state lawmaker Cheryll Heinze, says the pilot's estimates of wind speeds at the time were lower than those recorded at the local airport. The Cessna 206 floatplane that crashed was carrying five Matanuska Electric Association employees including Heinze, the co-op's director of human resources and public relations, on a fishing trip. MEA general manager Evan “Joe” Griffith, 71, was at the controls when the plane flipped after landing on Beluga Lake.

An Anchorage celebration of life for Cheryll Heinze is being held Monday evening, complementing a Mat-Su Valley event in the former state lawmaker's honor slated for Tuesday. Heinze, 65, was killed in a Tuesday plane crash on Homer's Beluga Lake. Five Matanuska Electric Association employees on a fishing trip were on board the Cessna 206 floatplane that crashed, flown by MEA general manager Evan “Joe” Griffith; he and the others were able to escape with non-life-threatening hypothermia.

Evan "Joe" Griffith, the pilot of a floatplane that crashed last week in Homer killing former state lawmaker Cheryll Heinze, says he wishes he had died in her place. Heinze, 65, was killed in the Cessna 206 crash Tuesday night on Homer's Beluga Lake. Five Matanuska Electric Association employees including Griffith -- the electric co-op's general manager -- were on board as part of a fishing trip. Channel 2 sat down to talk about the crash with Griffith on Monday afternoon. Griffith and passengers Tony Zellers, 49, Eddie Taunton, 52, and Tony Izzo, 51, were able to escape the crash with non-life-threatening hypothermia.

Alaska State Troopers released the names of the three other passengers in Tuesday night's deadly plane crash in Homer. Former lawmaker Cheryl Heinze was killed in that wreck when the Cessna 206 she was flying in flipped while landing near the Homer airport. The other passengers are: Tony Zellers, 49, Eddie Taunton, 52, Tony Izzo, 51. The three suffered minor injuries. MEA general manager Joe Griffith, 71, was flying Heinze and the other passengers to Homer for a fishing trip.

The National Transportation Safety Board says the plane crash in Homer was the second fatal plane crash in Alaska as of early July 2012. The first fatal crash occurred near Red Devil in March , killing 2 people. The NTSB investigated 13 deadly crashes in 2011. It's the most Alaska has seen in the past five years. In 2010, there were 11 fatal crashes, but only 4 in 2009. In both 2008 and 2007, the safety board investigated 11 deadly crashes in the state.

Former state lawmaker Cheryll Heinze, 65, died Wednesday morning following a plane crash Tuesday night in Homer, according to Alaska State Troopers. Troopers said calls came in around 10:40 p.m. Tuesday of a plane crash at Beluga Lake in Homer and that Homer Police and Fire Departments and rescued all on board. Five people were on board the Cessna 206 that crashed, according to Clint Johnson with the National Transportation Safety Board. According to preliminary information from Ian Gregor, a communications manager with the Federal Aviation Administration's Western-Pacific Region, the Cessna flipped while landing on Beluga Lake at about 10 p.m. Tuesday.

State troopers say power and phone service was knocked out for several hours this morning after a small plane crashed into a power pole in North Pole. According to troopers the experimental plane had engine problems and lost power. The plane went down near the Dennis and Holmes roads. Troopers say 45-year-old Ruby Shorey was piloting the plane and tried to make it to an airstrip but fell shy, clipping the power pole with her landing gear. The plane flipped over and landed on its tail.

A plane crash near the Happy Valley airstrip, north of the Brooks Range, Wednesday afternoon left three people including a child seriously injured, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. NTSB spokesperson Clint Johnson says the agency was informed shortly after 3 p.m. that a Helio Courier, a small plane capable of short takeoffs and landings, crashed on takeoff from an airstrip near a haul road in the area. North Slope Borough Search and Rescue personnel responded to the crash and medevaced the plane's occupants, who Johnson said were headed to Fairbanks or Anchorage as of Wednesday evening.

Staff Sgt. Jacob Gibson of the U.S. Air Force was awarded the Airman's medal on Monday, the highest honor for a non-combat airman, for his live-saving actions back in 2010, when he pulled 16-year-old Rachel Zientek out of a burning Cessna that had crashed just moments after takeoff from Merrill Field. "I just can't believe how far I've come and what's Jacob's done," said the now-18-year-old Rachel, who had attended Monday's award ceremony. Zientek was headed on a trip with the family she babysat for, when the plane crashed back in 2010.