A plane has been located that matches the aircraft that went missing while carrying 10 people across Alaska’s Norton Sound, the Coast Guard posted on social media on Friday afternoon. Three people found inside were reported to be dead.
The plane was found about 34 miles (54km) south-east of Nome, the Coast Guard said.
Rescuers were searching for the aircraft that experienced a rapid loss of elevation and speed before its signal was lost, the Coast Guard said on Friday afternoon, citing radar forensic data provided by Civil Air Patrol.
The Bering Air Caravan, a single-engine turboprop, was heading from Unalakleet to Nome on Thursday afternoon with nine passengers and a pilot, according to Alaska’s department of public safety. Authorities were working to determine its last known coordinates.
Dan Sullivan, one of Alaska’s US senators, said he had spoken on the phone with the new secretary of transportation in the Trump administration, Sean Duffy, who he said Thursday was “committed to deploying resources from the DOT [Department of Transportation] and the FAA [Federal Aviation Authority] as the search continues”.
Unalakleet is a community of about 690 people in western Alaska, about 150 miles (240km) south-east of Nome and 395 miles north-west of Anchorage.
The disappearance marks the third major incident in US aviation in eight days. A commercial jetliner and an army helicopter collided near the nation’s capital on 29 January, killing 67 people. A medical transportation plane crashed in Philadelphia on 31 January, killing the six people onboard and another person on the ground.
The Cessna Caravan left Unalakleet at 2.37pm, and officials lost contact with it less than an hour later, according to David Olson, director of operations for Bering Air. The aircraft was 12 miles offshore, the US Coast Guard said. It was operating at its maximum passenger capacity, according to the airline’s description of the plane.
The plane was last seen over the Norton Sound around 3.16pm, according to data from flight tracker FlightRadar 24.
“Staff at Bering Air is working hard to gather details, get emergency assistance, search-and-rescue going,” Olson said.
Bering Air serves 32 villages in western Alaska from hubs in Nome, Kotzebue and Unalakleet. Most destinations receive twice-daily scheduled flights Monday through Saturday.
Airplanes are often the only option for travel of any distance in rural Alaska, particularly in the winter.
The Nome volunteer fire department said in a statement on social media that ground crews were searching across the coast, from Nome to Topkok.
“Due to weather and visibility, we are limited on air search at the current time,” it said. The region is prone to sudden snow squalls and high winds in the winter, and people were told not to form their own search parties because the weather was too dangerous.
after newsletter promotion
The Alaska air national guard searched with an HC-130 plane on Thursday night, but a helicopter had to return because of bad weather before even reaching the search area.
However, the guard was approved to fly the helicopter on Friday morning, and the Coast Guard brought an additional C-130 to help, the Nome volunteer fire department said in a statement posted on social media. A ground crew was headed along the coast and farther inland.
It was 17F (-8.3C) in Unalakleet around takeoff, according to the National Weather Service. Weather conditions included fog, light snow and freezing drizzle on Thursday evening. Visibility was down to half a mile at one point, with forecasts of wind gusts up to 35mph overnight.
The names of the people onboard were not yet being released.
Nome, a Gold Rush town, is just south of the Arctic Circle and is known as the ending point of the 1,000-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.
Associated Press contributed to reporting
