A small commuter jet crashed in western Alaska on Thursday, killing all ten passengers on board while flying from Unalakleet to Nome. The disaster involved a Bering Air Cessna Caravan, a single-engine turboprop plane with nine passengers and a pilot.
Authorities lost communication with the aircraft less than an hour after it took off at 2:37 p.m. owing to inclement weather, including light snow and fog, with temperatures hovering around 17°F (-8.3°C).
On Friday, the United States Coast Guard discovered the plane’s wreckage on sea ice while searching for it. A helicopter crew located the crash scene and dispatched rescue swimmers for further investigation.
The airplane, operating at full capacity, vanished around 30 miles southeast of Nome, 12 miles offshore.
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Radar data revealed that the jet had a significant loss of altitude and speed around 3:18 p.m., but the exact cause of the mishap is unknown. No distress signals were received from the aircraft’s emergency locator equipment, which normally sends a satellite alert when exposed to seawater.
The tragedy is the third major aviation mishap in the United States in the last eight days, after a commercial aircraft collided with an Army helicopter near Washington, D.C., and a medical plane crashed in Philadelphia.
Local, state, and federal officials, including the National Guard, helped with the search, combing through the frozen lakes and tundra in the search area.
As of Friday, Bering Air had two planes flying aerial searches in the area. Unalakleet, a small community of approximately 690 people, is located in a remote area where air transport is essential, particularly during the severe winter months.
