WASILLA -- Preliminary reports from witnesses indicate two Piper PA-18 Super Cub airplanes may have been 1,000 feet above the ground when they collided southwest of Wasilla on Saturday.
Both pilots -- 52-year-old Jeffry Bara of Eagle River and 35-year-old Levi Duell, an Alaska wildlife trooper from Anchorage -- survived the midair collision and subsequent crash of their small planes in fairly remote terrain near a private airstrip.
Authorities did not have updates on the pilots' medical conditions as of late afternoon Monday.
An ambulance took Duell to Mat-Su Regional Medical Center with what were described as moderate injuries. Bara, whose injuries were described by responders as "critical," was flown by a LifeMed Alaska helicopter to Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage.
National Transportation Safety Board investigator Brice Banning spent Monday moving between the separate crash sites in a heavily wooded area near Knik-Goose Bay and Vine roads. Banning said "preliminary data" from witnesses put the collision at 1,000 feet above ground.
"We have some eyewitnesses that observed the collision and we have some eyewitnesses that observed the airplanes after the collision," Banning said.
He said he hadn't been able to talk with either pilot yet.
The collision area is in the middle of a Talkeetna-to-Palmer swath of airspace under new radio frequency regulations triggered by a 2011 midair collision near Trapper Creek that killed a family of four. Banning said the witness reports on Saturday's collision were still preliminary and he's still piecing together details. He said he planned to closely examine radio traffic at the time of the accident as part of a larger investigation.
Bara was certificated as a commercial pilot in 2008, according to a Federal Aviation Administration database. No one answered the phone at his home on Monday.
Authorities had little information about Bara's itinerary. He did not file a flight plan and investigators haven't been able to speak with his family members, NTSB Alaska chief Clint Johnson said Monday.
Duell works out of the Alaska Wildlife Troopers' Anchorage office. He left for a routine wildlife patrol Saturday, Alaska State Troopers spokeswoman Megan Peters said in an email. He took off from Wasilla and was apparently going to check on a cabin before heading to Lake Hood in Anchorage, investigators say.
The trooper's plane was removed from the crash site Monday, Johnson said. Bara's plane remained in place and discussions were underway about removing it, most likely by helicopter but possibly by sled.
Matanuska-Susitna Borough airspace is increasingly busy with small planes. The fastest-growing region in Alaska is home to numerous small airports and scores of private airstrips.
A midair collision over the Palmer Hay Flats in 2006 killed five people in two planes: Wasilla pilot David Beauregard and his children, ages 16, 13 and 9; and Chugiak resident William Smoke, chief pilot in Alaska for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. An NTSB report later found that the probable cause was "inadequate visual lookout" by both pilots resulting in a failure to see and avoid each other.
Anchorage pilot Corey Carlson died in the 2011 collision of two floatplanes near Trapper Creek, as did his wife, Hetty, and their two daughters, ages 5 and 3.
That accident prompted the FAA to streamline radio frequencies after federal investigators discovered the two pilots were on different frequencies at the time and unable to hear each other. Pilots in Wasilla, Willow and Big Lake are on the same frequency now and Palmer pilots on another, one local pilot said.
Banning said his investigation of Saturday's crash "will encompass radio traffic" as well as weather, equipment, glare and all the other factors NTSB has to weigh. He expects to release a preliminary report on the accident next week.
Pilot and flight instructor Ray Johnson, who has a hangar at the private South Hollywood Airstrip within a mile of the crash sites, said he didn't see the collision but got a call about it within about 10 minutes of hearing a plane fly over followed by a strange, clanking sound in the far distance.
Johnson said it may be a mistake to pin blame on radio traffic -- or a lack of it -- before the facts of this particular collision are known.
"It only takes a couple of seconds for a person to look out a window and watch a moose or something for another airplane to come on," he said. "That's like 200 miles an hour coming together -- each one of them doing 100. It only takes a couple of seconds."