A plane crash north of the Salcha River on Saturday took the lives of two, the Alaska State Troopers reported in the Trooper Dispatch.

State and Wildlife Troopers responded to the scene to the east of Fairbanks on Saturday after the crash was called in at approximately 11 am, to find that 81-year-old Sam R. Brice and Howard “Buzz” Otis perished in the crash of a small Alaskan-built aircraft known as an “Arctic Tern.”

Brice and Otis, both prominent businessmen in the Fairbanks area, were longtime Alaska residents. Brice had been taking Otis to check on Otis’s son when they crashed on the return trip.

NTSB traveled to the scene near Butte Creek to investigate the cause of the crash and oversee the removal of the aircraft for closer inspection and details on the reason the aircraft came down. 

Witnesses near the incident heard engine fluctuations prior to the crash. No one saw the aircraft when it crashed.[xyz-ihs snippet=”Adsense-responsive”]

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