UPDATE: Missing plane found, couple confirmed dead

The wreckage of an aircraft missing since Sunday has been located and both people aboard the flight, Arthur and Ann Ward of Salcha, have been confirmed dead according to Alaska State Troopers.

Troopers were notified around 3 p.m. Wednesday of the discovery. Lt. Colonel Candis Olmstead with Alaska National Guard says that discovery was made by an Alaska Army National Guard Black Hawk helicopter crew about 30 miles southwest of Ft. Greely during a site survey training mission. Olmstead says the Army Guard Black Hawk crew landed near the wreckage at Molybdenum Ridge and confirmed the aircraft was the same aircraft missing since Sunday.

The crash site has not yet been reached by NTSB investigators, who are making arrangements to access the site Thursday.

Nearly 20 aircraft are searching a large swath of Interior Alaska for a plane with a missing Salcha couple onboard. Art and Ann Ward left Salcha at between 11 a.m. and noon on Sunday, bound for their homestead near McCarthy, within Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, but they never arrived. A family member reported them overdue Monday morning.

The Alaska Rescue Coordination Center says nine agency aircrafts, from the Alaska Air National Guard, Civil Air Patrol, National Park Service and Alyeska Pipeline Service, and 10 Good Samaritan planes are searching Wednesday for the missing plane. Two U.S. Marine Corps aircraft helped in the search Monday evening while they were temporarily in Alaska.

Search areas include possible flight paths, and areas where the plane may have diverted for weather or other reasons. There’s also a grid search in the Copper River Basin.

Searchers say they are not requesting additional assistance, though if Good Samaritan volunteer pilots plan to search the area, they’re asked to check in with the RCC for recommended radio frequencies and to document results of search efforts.