ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – Two climbers have been killed in an avalanche on Mount Frances in Alaska’s Denali National Park, making them the first to perish on that craggy peak near Mount McKinley, the National Park Service said on Wednesday.

The climbers, Jiro Kurihara, 33, of Canmore, Alberta, Canada and Junya Shiraishi, 28, of Sapporo, Japan, were attempting to ascend a new route on the west face of the 10,450-foot mountain, the Park Service said.

They were last seen on Saturday at the Kahiltna Glacier base camp used by most Mount McKinley climbers, the Park Service said.

When they had not returned to the camp by Monday, park rangers began searching for them. Rangers flying over the avalanche debris on Tuesday spotted one body, and on Wednesday found the other, the Park Service said.

Rangers recovered the bodies of both men and hauled them from the site by helicopter.

Mount Frances, just north of the Kahiltna base camp, is a technical peak tackled by experienced mountaineers. Climbers use two routes, on the southwest ridge or northeast ridge.

Both involve moderately steep ascents over snow and ice, and the southwest route includes a steep section of rock, according to the American Alpine Institute.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – The pilot killed in a plane crash with former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens last summer should have undergone a more rigorous medical exam before getting his license back following a 2006 stroke, U.S. safety officials said in a report on Tuesday.

The National Transportation Safety Board said the pilot, Theron “Terry” Smith, may have been suffering some lingering effects from the stroke, which had led to a temporary suspension of his pilot’s license and prevented him from flying for two years.

In its final report on the crash, issued in Washington, the NTSB found no clinical evidence that Smith suffered “a medical or cognitive problem” at the controls of the plane but cited that as a possible factor.

“A medical condition leading to transient incapacitation or impairment (of the pilot) could explain the circumstances of this accident,” the agency said, adding, “it is not possible to determine whether such a scenario occurred.”

Smith, who was 62 and a former chief pilot for Alaska Airlines, perished along with Stevens and three other passengers when the DeHavilland Otter aircraft he was flying slammed into a mountain slope on August 9, 2010.

The plane was carrying Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in U.S. Senate history, and a party of eight others back from a fishing lodge near Dillingham, Alaska, when it crashed.

The probable cause of the accident was listed simply as the pilot’s “temporary unresponsiveness for reasons that could not be established from the available information.”

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – The probable cause of the airplane crash that killed former Senator Ted Stevens and four others last summer was “temporary unresponsiveness” by the pilot, federal safety investigators said in a report on Tuesday.

The National Transportation Safety Board said it was possible the pilot, Theron “Terry” Smith, was suffering some lingering effects from a 2006 stroke that had forced a temporary suspension of his flying license.

“A medical condition leading to transient incapacitation or impairment (of the pilot) could explain the circumstances of this accident,” the agency said in its final report on the crash, issued in Washington.

The report added, however, “it is not possible to determine whether such a scenario occurred.”

The NTSB also faulted the Federal Aviation Administration for having reinstated Smith’s pilot’s license two years after his stroke without conducting a more thorough examination of his health.

The probable cause of the accident was listed as the pilot’s “temporary unresponsiveness for reasons that could not be established from the available information.”

Smith, who was 62 and a former chief pilot for Alaska Airlines, perished along with Stevens and three other passengers when the DeHavilland Otter aircraft he was flying slammed into a mountain slope on August 9, 2010.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – Inspectors examining packages at Anchorage’s international airport discovered large quantities of heroin cached in shipments of purses, baby wipes and picture frames, an official said Monday.

A total of 6 pounds of heroin with an estimated street value of $1.2 million was found over the past month in packages shipped to a FedEx facility at the airport, said Jerry McGee, Customs and Border Protection chief in Anchorage.

The three shipments appear unrelated but were notable for their large size, McGee said.

“We get narcotics seizures on a regular basis. However, this was substantial, a fairly large quantity,” he said.

The Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport is one of the world’s busiest air-cargo handlers, serving as a hub between North America, Asia and Europe.

The heroin discovered over the past month was destined for the United States, he said. Investigations into the shipments are ongoing, he said.

The first shipment was discovered on April 22, concealed in a package of ladies’ purses from Malaysia that seemed abnormally heavy, according to customs officials. Closer scrutiny revealed 423 grams of heroin sewn into the purse liners, officials said.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – An Anchorage woman has been charged with inflicting years of abuse on her six adopted children, some so malnourished they did not reach puberty in their teen years, authorities said on Wednesday.

Anya James, 50, was arrested on Tuesday, accused of starving and imprisoning the children she adopted while collecting over $750,000 in subsidies from the state, police said.

The children were kept isolated from the outside world, police said.

They were home-schooled, confined to small rooms with alarm-rigged doors and windows and video cameras to prevent escapes, and forced to use a kitty litter bucket as a toilet, even though their house had three working bathrooms, police said.

Two of the adoptees had already left the house when the abuse investigation started eight months ago, and the other four were “removed immediately,” said Anita Shell, spokeswoman for the Anchorage Police Department.

Some of the children removed from the house were so malnourished they had to be hospitalized, police said.

The youngest of the children are teenagers and the oldest is now 20, Shell said.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – Three commercial clam diggers have been found dead in the icy waters of Alaska’s Cook Inlet, and a search was on for their two missing companions, the U.S. Coast Guard said on Wednesday.

The clammers, who went missing Tuesday afternoon, had been working on a beach on the west side of the inlet, across from Kenai, Alaska.

They were employed by Pacific Alaska Shellfish, a subsidiary of Oregon-based Pacific Seafood Group and last seen using a 20-foot aluminum skiff, said Coast Guard Petty Officer David Mosley.

“We just know that they were in the skiff and they did not arrive when they were expected,” he said.

Company employees found the body of one of the clammers on Tuesday, and the Coast Guard later found two more. The bodies found by the Coast Guard were about 1,700 yards from shore, Mosley said.

“Honestly, we don’t know exactly how they got in the water,” he said.

The Coast Guard was using a patrol boat and a helicopter to search for the two clammers still missing, he said. The skiff has not been found.

CALGARY/ANCHORAGE, May 17 (Reuters) – BP Plc (BP.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and ConocoPhillips (COP.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) dropped efforts on Tuesday to build a $35 billion gas pipeline from Alaska, blaming chronically low prices as well as a technological revolution that has opened up huge supplies of natural gas much closer to big U.S. markets.

The move to scrap the Denali pipeline proposal after three years of trying to develop it leaves longtime hopeful TransCanada Corp (TRP.TO: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) as the only proponent of a gas pipeline from Alaska to the Lower 48 States, a project that has faced years of delays and market uncertainty.

In the meantime, energy companies have developed drilling and hydraulic rock fracturing technology that allows them to tap massive shale gas reserves in Pennsylvania, New York state, Texas, Louisiana and the U.S. and Canadian Rockies.

“Since Denali began its efforts in 2008, the North American gas market has changed significantly, primarily as a result of the development of shale gas resources,” Denali President Bud Fackrell said in a statement. “This has created a very difficult environment in which to secure financial commitments from potential customers.”

Both Denali and TransCanada held “open seasons” last year to gain shipping commitments from the three major gas producers on Alaska’s North Slope, where about 35 trillion cubic feet of reserves currently have no market outlet

With BP and ConocoPhillips backing Denali and the other major producer, Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), aligned with TransCanada, neither pipeline proposal gained sufficient backing. The two projects had planned different routes to the big U.S. markets.

TransCanada, whose hopes of a pipeline to U.S. markets from Alaska date back to the 1970s, has the backing of the state government under a process that was started by former Governor Sarah Palin. But producers have been hesitant to commit to either project due to a glut of supplies and the lack of fiscal deal with the state.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – A climber with a broken leg was rescued from a snowy spot 800 feet below the summit of Mount McKinley, while one of his expedition partners was found dead farther down the mountain, the National Park Service said on Friday.

The rescue of the injured climber, who spent nearly a full day waiting in howling winds and bitter cold temperatures near the mountain’s 20,320-foot summit, was one of the highest-altitude saves ever performed by Denali National Park rangers, officials said.

The climber was able to climb into a basket lowered from the park’s contracted high-altitude helicopter late on Thursday, and carried down to McKinley’s glacier base camp. From there, he was flown to Anchorage for medical treatment.

“This one, from our records, does appear to be the highest short-haul rescue that we’ve done in Denali National Park,” said Maureen McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the park’s mountaineering ranger station in Talkeetna.

The dead climber, who had descended with a partner to try to reach safety lower on the mountain, was picked up later in the evening at the 18,000-foot level. The man had become separated from his expedition partners sometime Thursday, McLaughlin said.

A park ranger, lowered out of the helicopter by rope, buckled the dead climber into a canvas sling, she said. The helicopter carried the ranger and the victim down to the mountain’s base camp at 7,200 feet, where the climber’s death was confirmed, she said.

The cause of death is yet unknown, McLaughlin said. “There were no obvious signs of trauma to him,” she said.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – A safety-escort tug that ran aground two years ago on Prince William Sound’s Bligh Reef, site of the Exxon Valdez disaster, went astray because of an inattentive captain who was playing video games, the U.S. Coast Guard has concluded.

The tugboat Pathfinder was part of a navigation safety system established in the aftermath of the 1989 spill to guide oil tankers through the sound after they fill up with crude at the marine terminal of the trans-Alaska pipeline in Valdez.

But the Crowley Marine Services-operated vessel wound up striking the same submerged reef that ripped open the hull of the Exxon Valdez supertanker, causing the worst tanker spill in U.S. waters.

The Coast Guard report, dated May 5, is preliminary and was issued to various parties investigating the 2009 tugboat accident, Petty Officer Walter Shinn said Wednesday.

The report was not formally released to the public, but a final report is expected to be issued later in the week, said Shinn, based at the Coast Guard’s Alaska office in Juneau.

The Pathfinder spilled 6,410 gallons of diesel fuel after it struck Bligh Reef on the evening of December 23, 2009. The vessel had been headed back to Valdez after scouting for floating ice in the area traveled by oil tankers.

According to the Coast Guard report, Captain Eugene Monsen changed the Pathfinder’s course despite losing track of the vessel’s precise location, increased speed and failed to properly communicate with other officers.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – More than a third of the inhabitants of a tiny native village in Alaska have been evacuated after flooding caused by jammed river ice swamped homes and public facilities, officials said on Tuesday.

Fifty-three residents of Crooked Creek, a Yupik Eskimo and Athabascan Indian village of 137 people on the Kuskokwim River in southwestern Alaska, were taken to drier ground at a nearby mine, said Jeremy Zidek, spokesman for Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

The river flood has poured water and ice chunks into about 70 percent of the village’s homes, some of which were knocked off their foundations, Zidek said.

The flooding also caused a power outage, submerged the access road to the village airport and damaged communications equipment, state officials said.

No injuries have been reported, Zidek said.

The extent of damage is difficult to determine for now, he said. “The water is still high. It’s hard to get that damage assessment.”

Once water levels fall and people can return to Crooked Creek, a disaster-response team will start that analysis, he said.