Bear Creek Township is a township in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, United States. The township was the site of a plane crash on May 21, 2000 when an airplane, in its attempt to land at the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport in nearby Avoca, crashed in what was described by BBC as a "wooded area" of the township near the intersection of Bear Creek Boulevard (PA-Route 115) and the Northeast Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, killing the pilot as well as all 19 passengers. NTSB investigation ruled the accident was probably due to low fuel. The incident spurred an FBI investigation and made news across the globe. Passenger safety in the aviation field became a major issue of the 2000 U.S. presidential election. The population was 2,580 at the 2000 census.