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Officials inspect Alaska plane crash

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Federal investigators yesterday began to document the wreckage of a plane in remote southwest Alaska that killed four people and injured six Friday night.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska

- Federal investigators yesterday began to document the wreckage of a plane in remote southwest Alaska that killed four people and injured six Friday night.

A break in weather conditions yesterday allowed two investigators to reach the scene where a single-engine aircraft went down near the village of Saint Marys, said Clint Johnson, the chief of the National Transportation Safety Board's Alaska regional office.

The plane crashed about 6:30 p.m. Friday four miles from Saint Marys. It left Bethel on a scheduled flight for Mountain Village but never arrived.

About 7 p.m. Friday, one of six survivors, Melanie Coffee, made a frantic call for help resuscitating her infant boy, then walked nearly a mile to lead searchers hampered by cold and fog to the crash site.

Pilot Terry Hansen, 68, and passengers Rose Polty, 57, Richard Polty, 65, and Coffee's 5-month-old boy, Wyatt, died in the crash.