PALMER — An Anchorage pilot was killed Friday evening after a floatplane crashed into a lake about 10 miles west of Big Lake, authorities say.
The pilot’s wife was a passenger in the plane and was injured but able to swim to shore and get help after the plane went down in Butterfly Lake, Alaska State Troopers said in an online report posted Saturday morning. Emergency dispatchers received the report of the crash at about 7 p.m. Friday.
The woman “reported that her husband was the pilot and was believed to be deceased as he was still in the submerged cockpit long after the crash,” troopers said. Troopers identified the pilot later Saturday as 70-year-old Anchorage resident Paul Spiro.
No one else was in the plane, which couldn’t be immediately located, troopers said. Search efforts were halted overnight due to darkness.
Troopers said the woman was transported by LifeMed helicopter to the hospital for treatment of her injuries, which were described as not life-threatening. The search resumed at 6 a.m. Saturday and the partially submerged plane was discovered by a local on East Butterfly Lake, adjacent to Butterfly Lake, troopers said.
A Department of Public Safety helicopter and Alaska Wildlife Troopers “in a float cub” coordinated with Anchorage-based dive team members to recover the pilot’s body Saturday, troopers said.
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating, and the state medical examiner will conduct an autopsy.
Ten people have now died in six plane or helicopter crashes in Alaska since the beginning of September, including two separate crashes in mid-September that killed six people.