DILLINGHAM -- The gloom hung thick as the fog smothering this Southwest Alaska fishing community on Tuesday as National Transportation Safety Board investigators and the national press converged on the site of a deadly airplane crash that claimed the life of former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens and four others.

A Peninsula Airways turboprop airplane arriving from Anchorage had to circle for 15 minutes looking for a break in the weather before descending toward the lone runway that stretches across the tundra just west of the city of 2,500 near the confluence of the Nushugak and Wood rivers. The first attempt was aborted, and the plane went around again.

On the second attempt, the wheels touched down on the tarmac, and the white crosses in the local cemetery rolled past the window as if to remind of the dangers of flying in Alaska. It was in the mountains only about 17 miles north of here on Monday that a single-engine Otter owned by Anchorage-based GCI Communications crashed on what was to have been a short, quick, day trip from the Agulowak Lodge to a nearby lake.

Such flights are an everyday occurrence in the salmon-rich country east of Bristol Bay. Anglers come from all over the world to stay at high-end fishing lodges and fly out daily to sample the superb fishing, for not only salmon but bragging-size rainbow trout. Stevens, 86, had been coming to the Agulowak for years. He and GCI founder Ron Duncan went way back.

Among those with Stevens in the plane that set off from Duncan's lodge for a day of fishing Monday were 62-year-old pilot Terry Smith, a long-time Alaska aviator who was once chief pilot for Alaska Airlines and whose father was an Alaska Bush flying legend; Bill Phillips Sr., a former Stevens aide; and 48-year-old Dana Tindall and her daughter Corey, 16. Tindall was the vice-president of regulatory affairs for GCI. She had spent 24 years with the company and is credited with helping to position the company as a dominant player in the Alaska telecommunications business.

For her and the other four it would be their last flight. Four others, including former NASA administer Sean O'Keefe, would almost miraculously survive the crash and a night out on a mountainside, though at least two were reported in serious condition in Anchorage hospitals Tuesday night.

No one yet knows why the turbo-powered, float-equipped Otter that Smith was flying went down, and it could be weeks before the NTSB comes up with even a preliminary ruling on what went wrong. But the talk everywhere in this community Tuesday night focused on whether anyone should have been flying in weather so bad that after the crash rescuers couldn't reach the scene for half a day.

The attraction of the clear view of hindsight was hard to resist as the rain fell, the wind blew and the fog hugged the surrounding mountains.

"Nobody should be flying,'' said Lorna Olson, the 54-year-old manager of the Dillingham Hotel. "The last two days were the worst we've ever had. It seems like the fall storms started on Sunday."

Born and reared in the Western Alaska, Olson is no stranger to flying. It is the only way to get around in this land of few roads. She is thus equally familiar with airplane crashes. They are a way of life in Alaska. The state leads the nation.

"A disproportionate number of commuter and air taxi crashes occur in Alaska,'' the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health noted in 2009. From 1990 to 2008, accidents in the 49th state accounted for more than a third of the nation's 1,566 commuter and air taxi crashes and 20 percent of the fatalities.

Bad weather, constantly changing weather, remoteness, limited weather data for pilots, and pilots pushing their limits -- either because they choose to or because they find themselves in situations where they are forced to -- have been blamed for the high accident rate. Stevens, a former military flier decorated for heroism, had been a big advocate of Federal Aviation Administration programs aimed at trying to reduce the number of crashes. Given his knowledge of Alaska aviation, some wondered why Stevens got in the airplane.

"I wouldn't have flown,'' said Mike Merlino, a 53-year-old commercial fishermen enjoying a drink and a Marlboro at the Sea Inn Bar. "As windy as it was, I wouldn't have flown.

I can't believe they were flying in that weather.''