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ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A small airplane hit a bald eagle before it crashed and burst into flames just north of Anchorage last month, killing all four people on board, authorities said Wednesday.

It is the nation’s first civilian plane crash to result in deaths after an impact with a bald eagle, said Shaun Williams, a National Transportation Safety Board investigator. There have been other crashes involving eagle strikes that resulted in serious injuries, he said.

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Remains of the eagle were found on the plane’s tail structure, Williams said.

The fire after the crash makes it hard to know for sure, but evidence indicates that’s where the eagle initially struck the aircraft. If so, it could have altered the plane’s path or damaged its tail structure, causing control issues for the pilot, Williams said, adding the agency is looking into it.

Also part of the investigation over the next 10 to 12 months will be determining if the bird struck the airplane before or after the Cessna 172 hit a 100-foot spruce tree, which investigators determined to be the plane’s initial impact point in the preliminary report released last week.