A small commuter plane that crashed in western Alaska on Thursday was discovered on sea ice on Friday, with officials confirming that all ten people aboard died.
This is one of the state’s deadliest accidents in the last 25 years.
The plane, operated by Bering Air, had been flying from Unalakleet to Nome when it went missing on Thursday, only to be discovered the next day.
This accident comes just weeks after two other aviation incidents occurred last month. A deadly midair collision near Reagan Washington National Airport killed 67 people, while a fatal crash in Philadelphia claimed seven lives.
Following these incidents, President Trump promised to overhaul the Federal Aviation Administration, including appointing a new acting administrator and updating the country’s air traffic control system.
“My heart is broken because of the news from Nome. “Alaska is a big small town,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Ala.) wrote about Thursday’s crash on the social media platform X. “When tragedy strikes, we are never far from the Alaskans who have been directly impacted. But it also means coming together as a community to grieve and heal.”
When the wreckage was discovered on Friday, rescue teams used helicopters to search for the plane’s last known location, according to Mike Salerno, a US Coast Guard representative.
Two rescue swimmers were dispatched to evaluate the situation.
The Coast Guard reported that the plane disappeared about 30 miles (48 kilometers) southeast of Nome. According to radar forensic data from the United States Civil Air Patrol, the plane experienced an incident at around 3:18 p.m., resulting in a rapid decrease in altitude and speed.
Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Benjamin McIntyre-Coble stated that he couldn’t “speculate on what that incident was.”
McIntyre-Coble also stated that no distress signals were received from the aircraft, which is equipped with an emergency locating transmitter. When submerged in seawater, this device transmits a signal to a satellite, which then alerts the Coast Guard if an aircraft is in trouble.
He claimed that the Coast Guard had not received any such messages.
According to Alaska State Troopers Lt. Ben Endres, there were ten adults on board the flight, which was a standard commuter service.
