ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Alaskan scuba divers spent Friday preparing to take the plunge into the icy harbor of Whittier on Saturday for their annual Whittier Harbor Cleanup.

Dive Alaska is hosting the event, as they have been for the past three years. Drawing as many as 120 volunteers, the organizers say they’ve been able to pull up as much as 5,000 pounds of trash from the harbor in years past and expect to gather around the same amount on Saturday.

“We had the idea to do it all over the state and we started honing into Whittier the last couple of years,” said J.D. Stimson, one of the organizers with Dive Alaska. “It is a massive community event. So, Dive Alaska is just a small, small, small piece of the pie. This is really a just massive community event in the middle of winter when everybody’s itching for something to do.”

The effort takes hours, and plenty of preparation, from rigging scuba tanks to loading food for the crowds who will gather to help in the cold.

Whittier became the perennial choice because of its importance to the Southcentral region.

“So, it’s not just Whittier. It’s Anchorage. It’s the Valley. It’s people coming from Seward to go there if they don’t want to go out in Resurrection [Bay],” Stimson said. “It’s the gateway to all of Prince William Sound, and so it sees a ton of traffic, and we’ve noticed that it really needed a little bit more love.”

Stimson, a born and raised Alaskan from Cordova, said he’s been scuba diving since he was 11, and nothing is quite as rewarding as seeing the impact of the Whittier Harbor clean up.

“Everyone walks away stoked about it happening every single year, and I’m excited to just keep that momentum going,” Stimson said. “We start planning the next year’s harbor cleanup the moment the current year’s cleanup is over with, and it takes a full year to get this planned out to make sure that every every piece and part of this is moving the way it should. It’s a lot of work, but the payoff is so endearing and rewarding.

“And to see every community member show up and just, you know, even when we had miserably cold years, head down, working hard. Everyone’s a team. Everyone’s working together.”

While unfortunately the harbor seems to regain a lot of the garbage they clear out each year, J.D. said the growing focus on ocean and waterway cleanup around Alaska in the last decade has been encouraging.

“There has been so much traction in Alaska through all these different communities, all these different organizations, all over the state to get out and clean up our waterways, and it’s awesome,” Stimson said. “There’s all kinds of recycling happening. There’s all kinds of like fishing net recycling happening. There’s plastic recycling. There’s industrial supply recycling.”

“The amount of traction that’s being gained in recent years is through the roof and it’s epic to see.”

Anyone is free to participate in the clean-up efforts, diver or not, as the group needs onshore support as well. Volunteers should arrive for the 9:30 Whittier Tunnel opening and should mention they are there for the harbor cleanup and the tunnel attendant will waive the usual fee.

“None of us, none of us are doing this for the glamour, the glory. That’s not the dive industry,” Stimson said. “We’re doing this because we love every single second of this. We love our community.”

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ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Welcoming folks into Grant Hall on the Alaska Pacific University campus Friday was a picture of the Nordic Ski team with the slogan, “Olympians Made Here.”

That certainly rings true at the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics with eight of the 16 Team USA cross-country skiers being part of the APU program.

“If Alaska were it’s own nation in the parade of nations, we would be well-represented in the sport of cross-country skiing,” APU program coach Forrest Mahlen said with a laugh.

Many supporters filtered in and out of the campus’ theater Friday morning to afternoon for the live airing of the opening ceremonies, with an eruption of cheers and chants when Team USA was introduced in Italy.

APU skiers representing the state and country at the Winter Games are Rosie Brennan (37, third Olympics), Hunter Wonders (27, first Olympics), Hailey Swirbul, 27, second Olympics), Gus Schumacher (25, second Olympics), JC Schoonmaker (25, second Olympics), Zanden McMullen (24, first Olympics), Novie McCabe (24, second Olympics) and Kendall Kramer (23, first Olympics).

“It’s definitely pretty incredible to have so many people from our team make the Olympics, it is wild,” said fellow APU Nordic ski member Hatcher Menkens, 19. ″It’s a big driving force on our team, seeing the accomplishments that our men’s team and women’s team are making, just proves the work we are doing works.”

“I think it speaks to how good Alaska is for Nordic skiing,” Mahlen added. “We love it here, it’s got everything you need to be a Nordic skier at the highest level.”

Participating skiers may not know if they are racing until the day before or even day of. The first cross-country ski race will be the women’s skiathlon taking place at 3 a.m. AKST Saturday. The men will race in the 20-kilometer skiathlon event the following day while more cross-country medals will be up for grabs throughout the week. Monitor our website for updates on the Alaska Olympians.

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A flight headed from Alaska to the Big Island on Thursday afternoon (Feb. 5) was diverted back to its point of departure after declaring an emergency while flying over the Gulf of Alaska, after being in the air for only a few hours following takeoff.

Alaska Airlines Flight 255 — from Anchorage, Alaska, to Kailua-Kona on the west side of the Big Island — was forced to turn around because of a maintenance issue.

Data from FlightAware — an online platform the providing accurate, real-time, historical and predictive flight insights to the aviation industry — show that Alaska Flight 255 took off at 3:53 p.m. Thursday from Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport.

It was expected to touch down between 5 and 6 hours later at Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport on Hawai‘i Island.

The twin-jet Boeing 737 MAX 9 instead had to turn around at 6:43 p.m. for an emergency landing back in Anchorage because of what several social media pos scheduled to arrive by 4 a.m. today (Feb. 6), about and at least one Hawai‘i media outlet reported was a mechanical or maintenance-related issue.

Alaska Flight 255 landed safely at 7:38 p.m., with no injures, for its return to the Anchorage airport.

Hawai‘i News Report — @hawaiinewsreport on Instagram — posted that fire and emergency services greeted the plane at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport.

The exact — and official — reason for the emergency and diversion is unknown at this time; however, there are reports that say an engine light came on so pilots decided to turn around.

“My kids was on [Flight] 255 today. They said [it] was some monitors issues, but when they returned over [the] Pacific, everything came back to normal,” wrote Paul Kulakevich in reply to one of the social media posts discussing Thursday’s incident. “‘Captain said we have to go to Anchorage anyway to make sure everything is OK with plane.’”

Anastasiya Baletskaya wrote in reply to another post that “from knowing people on the flight — control board was acting up.”

Kulakevich, whose 7 children were aboard the plane, wrote in another reply that he heard from them that it was nothing serious, “just a control board start acting up.”

Passengers of Alaska Flight 255 were able to board another plane to make the trip to bound for Kona, only much later Thursday night. There also were additional delays connected with that jet.

“Your aircraft was delayed due to operational difficulties,” said Alaska Airlines on its status page about the route, following the emergency Big Island landing. “We apologize for the delay.”

They were scheduled to arrive by 4 a.m. today (Feb. 6) at Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport on the Big Island, about 5.5 to 6 hours later than originally scheduled.

Visit the Alaska Airlines website for flight statuses and other trip-related information. Be sure to also follow the airline on Facebook, Instagram, X and YouTube.

News reporter Nathan Christophel contributed to this story.