Police Monday identified the two victims of Sunday's fatal plane crash at the Wasilla airport as David Lott of Anchorage and Michael Hayes of Palmer.

Lott, 24, was a flight instructor who moved to Alaska from Florida last summer.

Hayes, a 38-year-old big-game guide, was taking advanced flight school training to get a commercial license, according to police and air safety investigators.

The two were on a routine training flight when one of them tried to land a small Cessna plane at the airport Sunday afternoon, according to authorities who investigated the wreck.

It's unclear who was at the controls, investigators said Monday.

Hayes was a lifelong Alaskan who spent 12 winters crabbing in the Bering Sea, according to his company's Web site. The company, Far North Safaris, operates big-game hunts in Southcentral and the Interior.

Lott was married, with a wife in Anchorage, according to the flight school where he worked.

An investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board said Monday he doesn't know yet what caused the crash.

"We don't really have good witnesses," said NTSB air safety investigator Larry Lewis. "It must have been a really quiet day, because nobody saw it happen at the airport."

The NTSB investigation could last six to nine months if aircraft parts have to be sent to a lab for analysis, he said.

The single-engine Cessna 177 Cardinal belongs to Aero Tech Flight Services Inc., an aviation instruction school based at Merrill Field in Anchorage.

The school's office manager, Matt Smith, said Monday that Lott moved to Alaska last year.

The crash was reported to the Wasilla Police Department at 12:33 p.m. Sunday. Lott was declared dead at the scene, but authorities freed Hayes, who was still alive. They flew Hayes by helicopter to a local hospital, but he later died, investigators said.

The plane crashed within 100 yards of the southwest end of the small airport's runway, pointing toward the north in an apparent landing attempt. The collision left the Cessna's wings mostly intact. The back of the plane appeared to suffer little damage.

"It appears they landed short," NTSB's Lewis said.

The nose of the Cessna was smashed in, and pushed down and under. Flight navigation equipment that normally would appear on the plane's dashboard was peeled back and facing outward.

The plane will be taken apart Friday with Cessna officials present, Lewis said.

He said he reviewed Aero Tech's training records and the plane's maintenance logs on Monday.

He encouraged anyone who may have seen the plane's flight pattern on Sunday to contact the NTSB.

"We've already (asked) the aircraft and engine manufacturers to give us data so we can see if it was performing properly," he said.

He said the Cardinal is a relatively rare model.

"There weren't a lot of them built," he said.

According to Aero Tech's Web site, the company uses Cessna 177s for instructor training and at least 19 hours of commercial flight training.