The pilot of a floatplane that struck a boat earlier this week while taking off from the Naknek River, causing only minor injuries, told National Transportation Safety Board investigators he did not see the watercraft.
An NTSB preliminary report on the crash released Thursday says the Katmai Air Cessna 207, which troopers said was piloted by 62-year-old Raymond Petersen of King Salmon, was taking off upriver near the King Salmon airport -- an area that hosts both air and boat traffic - at 11:50 a.m. Sunday. The plane, with six passengers on board, was headed for Brooks Camp in the Katmai National Park and Preserve.
"(Petersen) stated that he was taking off up-river and that he never saw the boat," investigators wrote.
The Wisconsin man operating the guide fishing boat, 29-year-old Ted Gibson, told the NTSB that he didn't see the Cessna until it was about 75 yards away, and already on course to hit his 18.5-foot boat.
"The boat operator said that the boat's motor was idling in neutral and that he put it in reverse to try to move the boat out of the path of the airplane," investigators wrote. "The boat operator said that, as he backed the boat away, the airplane struck the front of it."
The impact knocked Gibson and his two passengers out of the boat, but when he reached the surface he saw them swimming to shore and turned his attention to the plane's occupants.
"The boat operator saw that the airplane was upside down in the water, and he swam toward it to try to help," investigators wrote. "He said that the pilot already had most of the passengers out of the airplane and that other boats in the area quickly arrived to help get everybody out of the water."
According to troopers, all 10 people on board the two craft safely escaped, with two people from the plane and one from the boat being evaluated at the Naknek Clinic. The NTSB report lists three people with minor injuries from the collision, with board spokesperson Clint Johnson saying their distribution between the craft matched troopers' description.
Investigators based their initial assessment of the damage to the vehicles involved on images taken at the scene.
"Pre-recovery photographs of the airplane provided by the Alaska State Troopers and the Federal Aviation Administration showed that the nose of the airplane's left float was crushed aft and upward and an outboard section of the right wing was crushed and partially separated," investigators wrote. "The front right side of the boat was crushed inward, upward, and aft."
A weather report from the King Salmon airport, four minutes after the crash, listed winds from the northeast at six knots with visibility at 10 miles and broken cloud ceilings at 700 and 1,300 feet.
Johnson says investigators are working with the Federal Aviation Administration to determine who might have had right-of-way in the waters near the airport. He says a factual report on the collision will ultimately address both the circumstances under which it occurred and suggestions on how to avoid similar incidents.
"That's what we do -- we come up with ways or recommendations to keep this from happening again," Johnson said.
Contact Chris Klint