Troopers investigate plane crash, home invasion

MAT-SU — Rescuers responding to a plane crash on Big Horn Lake Tuesday found an overturned plane and a set of footprints leading to where another plane had landed and taken off.

Alaska State Troopers tracked down the owner, Todd Christianson, 44, of Anchorage, who told them he was unhurt in the crash and had a friend pick him up, trooper spokeswoman Megan Peters said.

Peters said that whenever an emergency locator transmitter is activated, the state’s Rescue Coordination Center has to figure out what’s up.

“Sometimes they go off in people’s garages and they don’t even know they’re going off,” she said.

That’s why when the signal came in around 10 p.m. Tuesday, troopers sent a helicopter to the scene with pararescue jumpers aboard. Those jumpers found the plane overturned in 2 to 3 feet of water. They scouted the scene and found the tracks.

“But it still didn’t answer our questions about what happened,” Peters said. So they tracked down Christianson.

Christianson on his own initiative has submitted accident reports to the Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board, she said.

Rogers back in court

PALMER — Christopher Erin Rogers Jr., accused of multiple murder counts including the machete-killing of his father, was in Palmer court Tuesday to clear up some outstanding, unrelated criminal charges.

Rogers, 29, was set to change his plea in a 2007 DUI case and resolve a petition filed to revoke his probation on a 2006 assault conviction.

Rogers’ public defender asked for and was given more time, as the agency waits on a report due back from a mental health professional gauging whether Rogers is mentally competent to stand trial.

Rogers is facing a bevy of charges in Palmer and in Anchorage for what police have described as a crime spree starting early the morning of Dec. 2, 2007, at his father’s home in Palmer, where he allegedly slew his father with a machete and wounded his father’s fiancé, Elann Moren.

According to police, Rogers allegedly then moved on to Anchorage, where he shot and killed another man and wounded two more people before he was arrested.

When District Court Judge John Wolfe asked when the report would be in, prosecutor Jarom Bangerter said he understood the report would be back May 5.

Wolf rescheduled the matter for May 23.

Rogers is set to stand trial in his murder cases June 30 in Palmer and Sept. 8 in

Anchorage.

Troopers investigate home invasion

WASILLA — Mat-Su Crime Stoppers is offering up to $1,000 for information leading to the arrest of whoever kicked in the door of a Fairview Loop home, held the residents at gunpoint and made off with $50.

According to an Alaska State Trooper press statement, the robbery happened at 11:40 p.m. April 7. The occupants reported they were asleep when two white males kicked in the door. No one was hurt.

Anyone with information is asked to call troopers at 745-2131, Mat-Su Crime Stoppers at 745-3333 or submit a tip online at matsu-crimestoppers.org.

Another man

cited for fire

PALMER — A second Butte man has been ticketed for letting a burn pile get out of control.

James Irvine, 49, of Butte was cited for leaving a fire un-extinguished, leaving it unattended and burning without a permit, according to a complaint the state’s Division of Forestry’s Palmer fire mitigation officer Tom Greiling filed in court April 16.

The charges relate to an April 2 burn pile Irvine torched at his home on Smith Road.

“Mr. Irvine had been burning debris at this spot and did not thoroughly check his fire for heat in order to ensure that it was completely extinguished prior to his leaving it unattended,” Greiling says in his report.

He reports that Irvine’s son in Portland, Ore., fielded a call from Irvine’s neighbor saying the fire was heading to an adjacent property and toward homes.

Irvine faces a fine and Forestry could seek to recover the cost of fighting the fire he allegedly started.

Butte resident Lynn Sandvik, 77, was ticketed when an ember escaped from one of a pair of burn piles he’d torched March 27. The ember sparked a fire that climbed up the side of Bodenburg Butte.

“The fire was stopped at just over 15 acres but not before it had burned onto an adjacent parcel of land owned by the state of Alaska,” fire mitigation officer Ethan T. Eley says in an affidavit filed in Sandvik’s case.

Sandvik was ticketed for not having a proper firebreak and for allowing the fire to burn onto neighboring properties.

Like Irvine, Sandvik faces a fine and is potentially liable for firefighting costs.