News Release

National Park Service Shifts Focus to Recovery Operations After Flight-seeing Crash near Denali

Date: August 7, 2018
Contact: Katherine Belcher, [phone]

TALKEETNA, Alaska – The National Park Service has lifted a temporary flight restriction over Denali National Park and Preserve and is working on plans to determine if and when recovery operations can begin at the site of a flightseeing plane that crashed on Aug. 4.

NPS confirmed on Monday that four people onboard the plane are deceased and a fifth is unaccounted for and presumed dead based on a preliminary visit to the crash site. The pilot, who worked for K2 Aviation, has been identified as Craig Layson. The names of the four Polish passengers are not being released at the request of the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Los Angeles.

An investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board has been in contact with the NPS personnel coordinating search and recovery operations and will be in Talkeetna tomorrow.

The wreckage is near the summit of Thunder Mountain, a feature located roughly 14 miles southwest of the summit of Denali, in extremely technical terrain on a hanging glacier that spans a crevasse.