Alaska plane crash updates: 10 people believed dead; crews work on recovery

A search for a missing plane carrying ten people has ended with the discovery of wreckage in Alaska, and authorities believe there are no survivors as crews plan to work Saturday to recover the bodies.

The Cessna 208B Grand Caravan aircraft operated by Bering Air dropped off the radar on Thursday afternoon after experiencing a rapid loss of altitude and speed over the Norton Sound on the western coast of Alaska, Lt. Benjamin McIntyre-Coble with the U.S. Coast Guard said Friday.

A massive search over land and sea by state and federal agencies lasted for the next day in challenging weather conditions before officials said Friday that they discovered the mangled plane over ice 34 miles from Nome, where the plane was supposed to land on Thursday.

Search crews found three people dead amid the wreckage and presumed the other seven were also dead, but said they were inaccessible because of the condition of the plane, the Coast Guard said. Recovery efforts were paused with the loss of daylight on Friday and would resume Saturday, according to the Nome Volunteer Fire Department.

“From reports we have received, the crash was not survivable. Our thoughts are with the families at this time,” the fire department said.

The identities of the victims hadn’t been released yet on Saturday, but Alaska State Trooper Lt. Ben Endres said Friday afternoon in a news conference that all occupants were adults on a regularly scheduled commuter flight. Families had been notified by Friday morning.

The latest crash comes as U.S. air travel and aviation faces increased scrutiny following the collision of a passenger plane and a military helicopter outside Washington, D.C., that killed 67 people and the fatal crash of a Medevac jet in Philadelphia that killed seven people and injured more than 20 others.

What to know about the plane, area it went missing

The aircraft was operating between parts of the state that aren’t accessible by land vehicles and roads. It was traveling from Unalakleet, Alaska, to Nome, Alaska, a flight that should take less than an hour. Here’s what to know about the area and the plane:

The plane’s location: According to live flight-tracking website FlightRadar24, the plane’s last known position before it went missing was over the water, 38 minutes after leaving Unalakleet.

Bering Air: Bering Air is a family-owned airline headquartered in Nome. Its website says it’s been operating since 1979 and offers scheduled regional service, charter flights and cargo transport. That includes scheduled service to both Nome and Unalakleet, which are about 150 miles apart in western Alaska, by the Bering Sea. It operates planes and helicopters.

Nome, Alaska: Nome is famous for being a gold rush town and the end of the Iditarod Sled Dog Race. The city of roughly 3,700 people is only accessible by dog sled, snowmobile, water and plane, according to the Nome Convention and Visitors Bureau. 

Unalakleet, Alaska: Travel Alaska’s website describes Unalakleet as the southernmost Iñupiaq village in Alaska. It has a population of around 800 people. The village is only accessible by plane, according to the Bureau of Land Management.

Plane model: The missing plane was a Cessna 208B Grand Caravan EX with tail number N321BA, according to FlightRadar24. Cessna’s website says, “The Grand Caravan® EX turboprop was engineered for challenging missions, high payloads and short, rough runways while delivering single-engine economy and simplicity.”

-Eve Chen

Weather, poor visibility complicated search

The Coast Guard said it wasn’t yet known what caused the plane to lose altitude and speed on Thursday. Results of a full investigation may not be revealed for some time.

Though officials can’t say for sure what happened, McIntyre-Coble with the Coast Guard noted that weather conditions were not ideal when the plane vanished. One Alaska National Guard helicopter helping in the search was unable to reach the area on Thursday because of poor weather, he said.

It was about 3 degrees in the air, and the water was about 29 degrees, McIntyre-Coble said Friday.

“Hypothermia and cold-water shock are a major concern for first responders and officials working on search and rescue operations near or on the water,” AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Tom Kines said.

Snow and freezing fog were reported in the plane’s flight path on Thursday, with visibility between 1 and 7 miles where it departed and half-a-mile to 8 miles where it was supposed to land, Kines said.

How could a plane go missing?

Though aerial incidents involving fatalities are rare, smaller accidents happen frequently throughout the country, and sometimes aircraft stop sending signals about where they are, said aviation attorney and former Air Force navigator Jim Brauchle.

“When the communication is gone and they can’t identify where the aircraft is or talk to somebody on the radio, then that’s how they’ll classify the aircraft as missing,” Brauchle said.

That’s a less frequent problem today thanks to technology called Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast, or ADS-B, which is required on all aircraft and broadcasts location data to air traffic controllers. Still, “it happens,” Brauchle said.

Airplanes fly with a transponder, which sends continuous data on its current altitude, airspeed, latitude and longitude to receivers on the ground. If the the transponder stops sending signals, it could be because of an electrical failure or a problem with the transmitter itself, Brauchle said.

In Alaska, many people get around on small planes, and the state has a disproportionately high number of accidents compared to the rest of the country, according to the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health.