Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs Crews in Alaska are searching for a plane that went missing with 10 people on board Thursday afternoon.Alaska State Troopers received reports at 4 o’clock 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.There was no early word on their identities.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.
A Bering Air Cessna Caravan like the one that went missing off Alaska on Feb. 6, 2025.
bearingair.com/charters
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.
Map shows last location reported, over Norton Sound off Nome, Alaska, by a Bering Air flight that went missing on February 6, 2025.
flightradar24
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.”But “due to weather and visibility, we are limited on air search at the current time,” it said. People were told not to form their own search parties because the weather was too dangerous.The National Guard and troopers were taking part in the search, according to the fire department.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.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. And planes are frequently the only choice for trips of any distance in rural Alaska.
It was 17 degrees Fahrenheit in Unalakleet at about the time the plane departed and light snow was falling and it was foggy, the National Weather Service said.Unalakleet is a community of some 690 people in western Alaska, about 150 miles southeast of Nome and 395 miles northwest of Anchorage.Nome is known as the finish line of the 1,000-mile Iditarod. It’s a Gold Rush town just south of the Arctic Circle.Nome-based Bering Air serves 32 villages in western Alaska and also has 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.
Kris Van Cleave
contributed to this report.
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