Crews in Alaska are searching for a plane that went missing with 10 people on board.
Alaska State Troopers received reports at 4 p.m. local time that a Bering Air Caravan heading from Unalakleet to Nome carrying nine passengers and a pilot was overdue, according to an online statement.
It was the third major U.S. aviation incident in eight days. An American Eagle flight and Army Black Hawk helicopter collided and plunged into the Potomac River near Washington, D.C. on Jan. 29, killing all 67 people on the two aircraft. And a medical transportation plane crashed in Philadelphia on Jan. 31, killing the six people onboard and one more on the ground.
Bering Air Director of Operations David Olson said it left Unalakleet at 2:37 p.m.
The Nome Volunteer Fire Department said in a Facebook post that the pilot told Air Traffic Control “he intended to enter a holding pattern while waiting for the runway to be cleared.”
A Coast Guard search and rescue aircraft was dispatched from Air Station Kodiak to the the plane’s last known location, 12 miles offshore, according to a statement on X.
Data from FlightRadar shows a Bering Air flight last reporting information at 3:16 p.m. over Norton Sound.
The Hercules HC-130 will fly a grid pattern over the water and along the shoreline with equipment that can help locate the plane in conditions with no visibility, the fire department said.
Elmendorf Air Force Base, in Anchorage, also sent flight support.
Ground crews have covered a stretch along the coast from Nome to Topkok, the fire department said, adding that, “We continue to expand search efforts to as many avenues as possible until the plane is located.”
The National Transportation Safety Board said it’s monitoring developments, but the agency doesn’t start investigations until a plane’s fate is determined. It has a team stationed in Alaska year-round.
Bering Air is a Nome-based carrier.
The Cessna Caravan is a single engine propeller plane that holds about 10 people, including the pilot. It’s generally reliable and is widely used.
Alaska is no stranger to small plane accidents, especially during winter, when the weather can make flying very challenging.
There was no early word on what conditions were like when contact was lost with the Bering Air flight.
Unalakleet is a community of some 690 people in western Alaska, about 150 miles southeast of Nome and 395 miles northwest of Anchorage.
Bering Air serves 32 villages in western Alaska from hubs in Nome, Kotzebue and Unalakleet. Most of the villages get scheduled flights twice a day Monday through Saturday.
— The Associated Press contributed to this report.
