The National Transportation Safety Board released an initial report Thursday afternoon on last weekend’s fatal Kasilof plane crash.
That crash killed pilot and owner of the Cessna 180 Brian Nolan and his sole passenger Peter Lahndt.
The report stated the weather station at the Soldotna Airport recorded light winds, clear skies, and 10 mile visibility in the area at 8:16 p.m., minutes before the crash occurred.
Nolan did not file a flight plan that evening according to the report.
Before the crash, witnesses described seeing the Cessna flying about 20 feet above the beach, then turned to climb up the nearby bluffs.
Kasilof resident Dan Brown was one of the first witnesses on scene around 8:00 pm Saturday, August 22.
Brown: “I was at my house that night and I was talking to my son on the phone and I heard a small plane by the house gun its motor, revved all the way up and then right after that an explosion, so I felt it was a plane crash. It took about two minutes for me to get down there and when I got down there the cabin of the plane was already engulfed in flames and I couldn’t get close enough to get anybody out of it.”
The NTSB initial report included that witnesses heard some sort of ammunition exploding inside the wreckage which was on fire.
Full examination of the wreckage is still underway.
