A Douglas DC-4 airplane crashed into the Tanana River near Fairbanks and burst into flames, authorities said.
No survivors have been found, Alaska state troopers said. The plane took off in the morning from Fairbanks international airport. It crashed about 7 miles (11km) from there and “slid into a steep hill on the bank of the river where it caught fire,” according to Alaska state troopers.
The Federal Aviation Administration described the plane as a Douglas C-54. Troopers identified it as a DC-4. The C-54 is a military version of the DC-4, which was a second world war-era airplane. The National Transportation Safety Board was sending investigators to the site, said Clint Johnson, chief of the NTSB’s Alaska regional office.
Johnson said it remained unclear what happened in the time between the takeoff and the crash but that the tower operator “saw a large plume of smoke.