The National Transportation Safety Board has released a preliminary report on the plane crash that occurred last month in Nanwalek, which killed the pilot and one passenger and left the other passenger seriously injured.
On April 28, a few minutes before 2 p.m., a regularly scheduled commuter air carrier flight from Homer to Nanwalek ended in tragedy when the plane lost control on approach to the village airport. Smokey Bay Air pilot Daniel Bunker and Anchorage-based Indigenous artist Jenny Irene Miller were fatally injured and the surviving passenger, who remains unnamed, was medevaced to an Anchorage hospital. The plane, a Cessna T207, N91025, was “substantially damaged.”
The preliminary report, written by NTSB investigator-in-charge Mitchell Rasmussen, notes that the plane — carrying passenger baggage and mail in addition to the pilot and passengers — departed Homer, crossed Kachemak Bay and followed the coastline before approaching Nanwalek Airport Runway 19 from the north. Multiple witnesses on the ground near the airport saw the plane approach from over the village to land — then the plane “increased throttle and entered a steep left bank” near the north end of the airport before losing control and “spiraling down to the ground.”
Some witnesses reported to NTSB that they saw a dog on the runway when the plane was on its final approach. Rasmussen’s report details a firsthand report from a second Smokey Bay Air pilot, a few miles behind N91025, hearing Bunker say over the radio, “I’m going around, there’s something on the runway,” just before the accident occurred.
The surviving passenger, who NTSB later interviewed at the hospital in Anchorage, said the plane approached Nanwalek Airport from the village side and was offset to the right of runway centerline on final approach. He said the airplane “entered a sharp, steeper than normal, left banking turn before losing control and rapidly spiraling down to the surface.”
The plan came to rest on the beach about 350 feet northwest of the approach end of Runway 19, the report states. First responders from the village pulled the pilot and passengers from the plane and performed CPR until the authorities and emergency medical response arrived, more than an hour after the crash occurred. Nanwalek residents also later pulled the wreckage to higher ground to keep the plane from being submerged as the tide began to rise.
In his report, Rasmussen notes that “no preimpact anomalies were visually observed with the flight control system.” The wreckage has been recovered to a secure facility for further examination; the final report, which will detail a probable cause of the crash along with any contributing factors, is expected to be released in 12-24 months.
The wreckage of Smokey Bay Air plane N91025 is photographed after residents pulled it from the water before high tide on April 28, 2025, in Nanwalek, Alaska. (Photo courtesy of NTSB )
