Two planes carrying five people collide mid-air in Alaska

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Two small planes carrying a total of five passengers collided in mid-air in Alaska Wednesday morning, authorities said.

The crash happened around 11 a.m. local time about 60 miles north of the city of Bethel, Alaska National Guard spokeswoman Lieutenant Colonel Candis Olmstead said in a statement. It was not immediately clear if anyone survived.

"The aircraft involved were a Hageland Aviation Cessna 208 Caravan with three individuals on board and a Renfro's Alaska Adventures Piper PA-18 Super Cub with two individuals on board," Olmstead said.

Olmstead said the crash occurred about 6 miles northwest of Russian Mission, a remote community in the southwest of the state along the Yukon River.

The cause of the crash was not immediately known.

Neither Hageland, nor Renfro's Alaskan Adventures, which runs fishing and hunting charters, immediately responded to a request for information.

An Alaska Army National Guard helicopter ferrying medics was arriving at the crash site, Olmstead said. Alaska State Troopers were also en route.

A spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board, Clint Johnson, said two Anchorage-based investigators were headed to the scene, but said authorities were "still very much treating this as an active rescue."

Johnson had no word on survivors, and said the Board was waiting for updates from the Alaska State Troopers and the U.S. Air Force's rescue coordination center.

(Reporting by Eric M. Johnson in Seattle and Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Chris Reese and James Dalgleish)