Update: Unstable sea ice, winter storm threaten recovery after Nome plane crash
Searchers on Friday found the missing Bering Air plane on the sea ice near Nome, but they did not find any survivors.
The plane had disappeared on a regularly scheduled flight Thursday afternoon, on its way from Unalakleet to Nome with a pilot and nine passengers on board.
The U.S. Coast Guard found the plane, a Cessna 208B Grand Caravan, 34 miles southeast of Nome after a massive search that involved numerous agencies and many volunteers. Rescuers located three people dead inside of the plane, the Coast Guard said. It has suspended its search for the others because of the condition of the aircraft, Petty Officer 1st Class Travis McGee said.
“The remaining 7 people are believed to be inside the aircraft but are currently inaccessible due to the condition of the plane,” the agency said in a social media post. “Our heartfelt condolences are with those affected by this tragic incident.”
It's one of Alaska's deadliest commercial airline crashes in decades.
A rapid loss in elevation
The cause of the plane crash remains under investigation.
Flight records indicate the plane left Unalakleet around 2:40 p.m. Thursday. It was flying at around 3,400 feet when it stopped transmitting its location at 3:18 p.m. It was scheduled to arrive in Nome about 10 minutes later.
During a Friday news conference, Coast Guard Lt. Benjamin McIntyre-Coble said radar data shows the plane drop.
“Part of that radar analysis showed that at around 3:18 p.m. yesterday afternoon, this aircraft experienced some kind of event which caused them to experience a rapid loss in elevation and a rapid loss in speed,” McIntyre-Coble said.
Officials said they did not have information yet about what led to the plane’s sudden elevation loss.
“We're unaware of any other indicators that the plane might have been experiencing any kind of distress prior to what we have from the radar forensics,” McIntyre-Coble said.
Nome’s fire chief, Jim West Jr., had said in an interview Thursday night that the pilot planned to stay in a holding pattern over Cape Nome until the runway cleared. Then the plane disappeared. Officials at Friday’s news conference said they had no further information about that account.
The 10 people on board the plane have not yet been publicly identified. Officials said they were all adults and their families have been notified.
An extensive search
The U.S. Coast Guard was leading search efforts Friday morning, with support from troopers, the Alaska National Guard, the FBI and local volunteers. The Coast Guard reported that the plane was 12 miles offshore when its position was lost.
The search by air Thursday night was mostly focused over the water and infrared imagery returned no strong indicators of the plane’s location, officials said. The plane had not sent any alerts via its emergency locator transmitter, according to the Nome Volunteer Fire Department.
The department said Friday morning that weather for the next 24 hours looked stable for continuing the search by air, and local rescue groups would continue searching by snowmachine. A base with supplies and fuel was established 16 miles east of town.
Clint Johnson, the National Transportation Safety Board’s Alaska chief, said numerous NTSB personnel were headed to Nome Friday.
“We have a pretty large response coming from Washington, D.C., from various locations in the air, in the neighborhood of nine people,” Johnson said.
The FBI’s Anchorage office was also providing “cellular analysis" Friday morning to try to locate the plane through signals from the cellphones on board.
Weather hampers early air search
At the time of the plane’s disappearance, the National Weather Service reported visibility of just one mile in Nome, with light snow falling. McIntyre-Cole described weather conditions in the area as “pretty challenging” Thursday evening, noting that they forced an Alaska Air National Guard helicopter to turn back. Although weather had improved Friday, conditions remained cold.
“The air temperature in the vicinity of the last known position is about 3 degrees,” he said. “The sea temperature, depending on the status of the ice, is about 29 degrees.”
Overnight into Friday, volunteer crews from Nome and White Mountain searched by snowmachine for signs of the plane. Danielle Sem, a spokesperson for the Nome Volunteer Fire Department, said the initial effort was a ground-only search “because of the weather and icing.”
West said a Bering Air helicopter tried to search for the plane Thursday but turned around near Cape Nome, citing high winds and low visibility.
'It hits home for everyone'
Gov. Mike Dunleavy and Alaska’s congressional delegation offered prayers for those aboard the missing plane via social media Friday.
“Rose and I are heartbroken by the disappearance of the Bering Air flight over Norton Sound,” Dunleavy said. “Our prayers are with the passengers, the pilot, and their loved ones during this difficult time.”
“Our prayers are with all those on the plane missing out of western Alaska, the Bering Air family, and the entire community of Nome,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski.
Sen. Dan Sullivan said Friday morning that he had asked NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy to visit Alaska – “and to her credit, she’s doing that this weekend.”
“My team and I stand ready to assist the community of Nome and (Gov. Dunleavy) in any way we can,” said Rep. Nick Begich.
The state Senate held a moment of silence in Juneau to mark word of the missing plane. State Rep. Neal Foster, D-Nome, posted links to news updates about the search on his Facebook page.
“Many thanks for keeping those on board and their families in your prayers,” Foster said.
Sem praised the response from local volunteers, who turned out in force Thursday to search for the plane at night, in 10-degree temperatures.
“When something happens here in small communities, in the small region that we live in, it hits home for everybody,” Sem said. “Because if you don't know them, somebody else knows them.”
'Could have been any of us'
In Unalakleet, school remained open Friday to keep the routine for students and the local church held a gathering for kids in the evening with pizza and movies, according to Kelsi Ivanoff, Unalakleet city administrator.
“The focus right now just seems to be taking care of our own,” she said, “making sure our kids are in school and staying in a normal routine, because that’s good for the kids in times like this.”
The incident hits close to everyone in the village, where air travel is essential for getting places and accessing medical help in Anchorage and Nome, Ivanoff said.
“It's really hard and close hitting because it could have been any of us, and it's really sad for those that did have it happen to and their families,” she said.
She added that residents are also grateful for Bering Air for providing multiple flights a day from Unalakleet, essential for residents.
“They provide so much support to our community so we want to support them now,” she said. “This happening on such a normally scheduled flight is just sad. It's really scary, it's really disheartening.”
Airline had 1 fatal crash in 45 years
A representative from Bering Air on Thursday evening confirmed the flight number, departure time and the time of the plane’s disappearance, but declined to say more. Bering Air, based in Nome, is a major regional air carrier serving 32 communities along Alaska’s northwest coast.
In its 45-year history, Bering Air has had just one other fatal crash. According to an NTSB report, in December of 1987 the pilot of a Cessna 207 died after striking a mountain while flying from Ambler to Shungnak at night, in what another pilot described as whiteout conditions.
Word of Thursday’s missing flight comes a week after 67 people died in a Jan. 29 midair collision between an American Airlines regional jet and a military helicopter near Washington, D.C.’s Reagan National Airport. The collision marked the nation’s first deaths aboard a scheduled passenger flight in more than five years, since a passenger died in a crash landing of a PenAir flight at Unalaska’s airport in 2019.
Few Alaska aviation crashes in recent decades have killed 10 people or more.
A de Havilland DHC-3 Otter air taxi operated by Rediske Air crashed just after takeoff from the Soldotna Airport in July of 2013, killing all 10 people on board.
In 1995, 24 people died aboard a military aircraft taking off from what is now Anchorage’s Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, when a flock of Canada geese flew across its flight path and jammed its engines.
In 1971, an Alaska Airlines jet carrying 111 people crashed into a mountain between Haines and Juneau, killing all aboard.
Alaska Desk reporter Alena Naiden contributed reporting from Anchorage.
Editor's note: After feedback from readers, we removed the U.S. Coast Guard's image of the plane wreckage from this story.
