Victims identified in crash of GCI plane

The Monday night crash of a DeHavilland DHC-3 Otter owned by Anchorage telecom company GCI claimed the lives of four Alaskans, including former U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, the Alaska Department of Public Safety announced Tuesday.

In addition to Stevens, 86, the deceased include:

-- Pilot Theron "Terry" Smith, 62.

-- Dana Tindall, 48, GCI's senior vice president for legal, regulatory and governmental affairs.

-- Corey Tindall, 16, Dana Tindall's daughter, who would have been a junior at South Anchorage High School this fall.

-- Bill Phillips Sr.

Also aboard the plane, injured but alive:

-- Former NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe, 54.

-- Kevin O'Keefe, Sean O'Keefe's son.

-- William "Willy" Phillips Jr., 13

-- Jim Morhard of Alexandria, Va.

"On behalf of the men and women of GCI, I offer our deepest condolences to the families and friends dealing with this heartbreaking event," GCI president Ron Duncan said in a statement issued shortly before the victims' names were released. "We will do all we can to support them in the weeks and months ahead."

Rescue was slowed by weather

At a press conference Tuesday, Maj. Gen. Tom Katkus of the Alaska Air National Guard said the first word of the downed plane came around 7 p.m. and that it was located on the side of a mountain, about a 40-degree slope with rocks and scrub brush, about 17 miles north of Dillingham. It was unclear whether the plane was leaving or returning to the lodge.

GCI employees from the remote lodge and some in Dillingham were instrumental in getting local "good Samaritans" to the crash scene while the weather was still good, he said.

The National Guard diverted rescue crews from another crash on Knik Glacier to the scene, but by the time they got to the area the weather had closed in. He described the weather as rain, clouds and fog, not the snow and ice rescuers had encountered at the Knik Glacier scene. The crews were forced to go to Dillingham and the local rescuers spent the night at the scene providing some medical aid.

"Weather prohibited any type of rescue effort into the evening," Katkus said. "The weather has been a factor in slowing this rescue."

Katkus would not or could not say more about the condition of the victims during the night. He said as far as he knew there were no signs of a fire at the crash site.

Guard members got close to the scene at first light and put pararescue teams on the ground. Using hoists, they pulled four survivors from the wreckage and took them to the hospital in Dillingham. Tuesday morning they were loaded onto a Coast Guard plane and flown to Anchorage for treatment.

Katkus and other state officials said they could not release any other names, either survivors or those who were killed, until the next of kin have been notified.

Katkus and others said they had no information on why the plane crashed. An NTSB team was expected to arrive at the scene by midday and planned to hold a press conference later Tuesday.

Alaska Department of Public Safety Commissioner Joe Masters said troopers were trying to reach the crash site by taking a boat around to a point where they could hike in. The DPS officers would secure the scene and provide assistance to the NTSB, he said.

Masters said extrication equipment was also being transported to the site but he wasn't sure whether that meant passengers had been trapped inside.

Katkus said communications with rescuers in Dillingham and those at the crash site were "sparse" through the night but that good communication was established once the National Guard and the Coast Guard got on the scene.

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