Our investigation revealed that Alaska has a growing share of the country’s deadly crashes from small commercial flights. Here’s what experts say could be done to improve aviation safety in the state.

A Japanese Navy training ship stopped over in Dutch Harbor on Sunday as part of its overseas training cruise.Mayor Vince Tutiakoff Sr. welcomed the crew at the city dock, and greeted the ship’s commanding officer, Rear Admiral Ishimaki Yoshiyasu.The JS Kashima is 143 meters long, with a mounted 76mm rapid-fire gun and two 324mm triple torpedo launchers.

Unalaska’s local risk factor has increased to “substantial” due to a rise in local COVID-19 cases.Since Friday, the city has reported 12 new cases of the virus. This brings the island’s total to 27 active community cases, up from 18 last week. There are also 20 industry cases currently in quarantine, according to city officials.

In a somewhat contentious City Council meeting Tuesday, councilors voted to keep Unalaska’s current mask mandate in place for the next two weeks.The island currently has 40 positive COVID-19 cases — 15 of them community members, according to city officials.While the local coronavirus risk level remains in the “moderate” category, council members also took other things into account, like the shortage of hospital beds in Anchorage, and the increased number of people being medevaced off the island.“For the first year of the pandemic, I think we had two medevacs for the entire year. What we’ve seen with [the Delta variant] — we’ve had three medevacs in the last six weeks,” said Melanee Tiura, the clinic director at Iliuliuk Family and Health Services.

Nearly nine months after Adak reported its first case of COVID-19, the nation’s westernmost city is seeing a spike in infections.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced earlier this month that all major crab stocks are down. And for the first time in over 25 years, the Bristol Bay red king crab fishery will be closed.

Ravn Alaska’s new nonstop aircraft touched down for the first time in Unalaska Monday.The Dash 8-300 left Anchorage just before 7 a.m. and landed in Unalaska around 10 a.m. with about 35 passengers on board.

A high-seas legal fight is causing havoc for one of Alaska’s biggest commercial fisheries, the Bering Sea pollock harvest out of Dutch Harbor.

The Qawalangin Tribe of Unalaska has applied for funding that could boost the island’s broadband capabilities. If approved, the tribe would use the money towards building a fiber optic cable from Washington state to Unalaska.

The Unalaska City Council voted Tuesday to keep the island’s current mask mandate in place.Over the past month, the city has experienced its largest surge of community-acquired COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic, and city councilors remain cautious as hospitals in Anchorage near capacity.