All 3 crew members onboard an ALL WEST FREIGHT Fairchild C123K Provider were killed when the aircraft crashed into the side of Mount Healy in Alaska's Denali National Park yesterday afternoon. The C123 crashed into the south-facing slope of Mount Healy within a mile of the National Park headquarters and about 200 yards north of the only road into the park. The aircraft went down about 3:00pm near the eastern edge of the park, about 180 miles north of Anchorage. The plane burst into flames on impact and started a wildland fire that was contained at approximately 2 acres. Officials said the plane "pretty much disintegrated" on impact. The 1st responders arrived within minutes, but the plane was already engulfed in flames. A tourist from Las Vegas said he saw the plane flying very low and slowly while he was walking toward the visitor's center near the park entrance. He thought the plane was going to land on a local airstrip, so he proceeded to the visitor's center. Within minutes, people came running in and saying a plane had crashed. He said the crash caused a column of smoke a few miles west of the visitor's center. Alaska Fire Service smokejumpers and Denali wildland firefighters were dousing hot spots to extinguish the fire late last evening and stayed on the scene overnight. The NTSB has opened an investigation into the crash and said that investigators would arrive on scene today. Early today, the FAA confirmed the aircraft's identification as tail number N709RR, and was nicknamed "Large Marge". It was the same aircraft used in the filming of the movie "ConAir."
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