Public Safety

The passenger plane that crashed near Nome last month, killing all 10 people on board, was hundreds of pounds overweight, according to a preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board.

40-year-old John Booth left Noatak around 3pm on Friday and was reported overdue the next day.

But in statements, Patkotak’s office said there was “a critical lapse in judgment,” that challenging terrain and weather conditions required use of the ATV, and that the supervising officer had been “released from employment.” Three other supervising officers had also been placed on leave.

Troopers say 36-year-old Georgia Onalik was operating the vehicle with an male passenger when it crashed on Willow Street.

Officials said the flooding destroyed Kotzebue’s dock, several roads and bridges and dozens of structures at multiple subsistence camps. The force of the storm also transported four large dumpsters to a sandbar in Kotzebue’s lagoon. City officials said two homes were also destroyed, displacing a family of six and a disabled elder.

Many residents posted on social media about the flooding – with one lifelong resident who lives by Kotzebue’s sea wall calling the flooding “the highest water (they’ve) ever seen.” Residents also reported flooding near the community’s hospital, lagoon, teacher housing and the northside of town.

30-year-old Brandon Sheldon of Kiana was the sole fatality after a boat carrying five people capsized on the Kobuk River.

According to an online dispatch, the boat was carrying five people on the Kobuk River north of Noorvik. After it capsized, four of them were able to contact locals by VHF radio for help, but 30-year-old Brandon Sheldon from the nearby village of Kiana was unaccounted for.

The Kotzebue Police Department announced Sgt. David "Mike" Cox’s resignation Thursday afternoon, following an internal investigation. The announcement came only hours after KOTZ News reached out to the department about the comments Cox made a month ago on a Facebook page operated by a South Carolina law enforcement agency.

Court records show Guy Nashookpuk, 16, is charged with two first-degree counts each of murder and attempted murder in Sunday’s shooting.According to a charging document filed Monday against Nashookpuk, borough police responded just after 11:30 p.m. Sunday to a report of a shooting at an Agvik Street residence. Officers found four gunshot victims: a dead man and woman, along with two severely wounded men.