(Creative Commons photo by Matt’ Johnson)

(Creative Commons photo by Matt’ Johnson)

By Quinton Chandler, KTOO Juneau

Update | 1:00 p.m. Monday

Alaska State Troopers released the name of the third person on board a plane that crashed southwest of Haines Saturday morning.

Twenty-nine-year-old Stanley Su Quoc Nguyen of Garden Grove, California was declared deceased at the scene. Troopers notified his next of kin.

Update | 11:50 a.m. Sunday

Alaska State Troopers released the names for two of the three people on board a plane that crashed southwest of Haines Saturday morning.

David Kunat, a 29-year-old Juneau pilot, and an adult male passenger from California both died at the crash site. Troopers said the other passenger, 31-year-old Chan Valentine from Juneau, survived the crash and was transported to Bartlett Regional Hospital.

Authorities notified Kunat’s next of kin, but Saturday night they were still trying to locate next of kin for the passenger from California.

Clint Johnson, chief of the National Transportation Safety Board’s Alaska office, said earlier that an NTSB investigator would visit the crash site Sunday morning.

Original Story | 8:13 p.m. Saturday

Two people died in a plane crash about 9 miles southwest of Haines near Glacier Point late Saturday morning. One person is critically injured, said Clint Johnson, chief of the National Transportation Safety Board’s Alaska office in Anchorage.

“Witnesses reported a twin engine airplane taking off from a site. …  It crashed in an area of tidal flats or tidal beach in shallow water and unfortunately, two people (were) deceased at the scene,” Johnson said.

He said emergency responders removed the injured passenger from the wreck and flew them to Juneau by helicopter. He does not know the identities of the passengers and he doesn’t know what caused the crash. He also didn’t say whether it was a commercial or private flight.

He said an NTSB investigator will ride a helicopter to the crash site Sunday morning alongside Alaska State Troopers and a representative from the Federal Aviation Administration.

“Once our investigator gets boots on the ground down there, those are the types of details as far as weather conditions, wind conditions,” Johnson explained. “Ultimately (we’ll) be able to actually interview the witnesses that actually saw this, that’s where we’re going to get a lot of the information.”

Johnson said they are “blessed” to have witnesses to the crash. He said witnesses can help investigators determine the cause of a crash in the same way witnesses are helpful when investigating car accidents.

The NTSB also reported there was a plane crash 30 miles southeast of Fairbanks Saturday.