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Four dead in two Alaska plane crashes

By Ed Adamczyk
David Kunat, 29, of Juneau, died Saturday when his plane crashed on takeoff from Glacier Point, Alaska. A passenger also died, and a third was hospitalized. Another small plane crash, in interior Alaska on the same morning, killed two people. Photo courtesy of David Kunatr/Facebook
David Kunat, 29, of Juneau, died Saturday when his plane crashed on takeoff from Glacier Point, Alaska. A passenger also died, and a third was hospitalized. Another small plane crash, in interior Alaska on the same morning, killed two people. Photo courtesy of David Kunatr/Facebook

May 30 (UPI) -- Four people died in two separate private plane crashes, almost simultaneously, in Alaska, state troopers reported.

A twin-engine Piper PA-30 Twin Comanche crashed on takeoff from a gravel airstrip at Glacier Point, about 10 miles south of the town of Haines, on Saturday. The crash on Alaska's southern coast killed pilot David Kunat, 29, of Juneau and passenger Stanley Su Quoc Nguyen, 29, of California. Another passenger, Chan Valentine, 31, was injured, the Alaska State Troopers reported. Valentine was hospitalized in critical condition.

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Kunat's plane made "a hard right turn to the east before stalling and colliding with the ground," a State Trooper dispatch said Saturday.

The cause of the crash remains unknown, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said.

The crash of a second plane in interior Alaska was also reported Sunday, Gregor said. The two unidentified people aboard a single-engine Arctic Aircraft S-1B2 plane both died, a State Trooper dispatch reported.

Six people have died in plane crashes in Alaska thus far in 2017, the National Transportation Safety Board said.

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