Missing plane found in Alaska, 10 passengers on board dead

Alaska: According to the media, the US Coast Guard stated on Friday that a small regional plane carrying nine passengers and a pilot that vanished in Alaska on Thursday has been located, but none of the passengers are still alive. The tiny commuter plane was discovered Friday (local time), about 34 miles southeast of Nome, according to the US Coast Guard Alaska.

Additionally, according to USCG Lt. Commander Mike Salerno, two rescue swimmers found three victims inside the aircraft, and the other seven “are believed to be inside the wreckage,” although they are now unreachable.

Nine people and a pilot were on board the Bering Air-operated Cessna. According to the Alaska State Troopers, it vanished Thursday afternoon while traveling from Unalakleet to Nome-cities in western Alaska, which are divided by the Norton Sound inlet.

When its location was lost, the Coast Guard reported that it was around 12 miles offshore.

CNN quoted Coast Guard Lt. Commander Benjamin McIntyre-Coble as saying that the plane “experienced some kind of event which caused them to experience a rapid loss in elevation and a rapid loss in speed” at about 3:18 p.m. local time on Thursday.

“#USCG has ended its search for the missing plane after the aircraft was located approx. 34 miles southeast of Nome,” the Coast Guard tweeted on X, sharing a photo of the lost jet. Three people were discovered inside and were said to be dead.

“The remaining seven individuals are thought to be inside the airplane, but because of the state of the aircraft, they are not now accessible. We send our deepest sympathies to everyone impacted by this terrible event,” it said.
The official said that since the missing jet had not used an emergency transmitter to send its location, the hunt for the aircraft had become more difficult.

Notably, Thursday’s search was hindered by poor weather, which made it difficult for planes to find the missing aircraft. The Nome Volunteer Fire Department reported Friday morning that first flights by US Air Force and Coast Guard C-130 crews found nothing.

At a press conference on Friday, McIntyre-Coble said that an aircraft engaged in the search had discovered “some sort of item of interest” and that the Coast Guard was on its route to its location before the plane was located.

No identities have been made public, but the fire department said Friday that the relatives of the passengers on the missing airplane “have been notified,” without providing any more details.

During the press briefing, Alaska State Troopers Lt. Ben Endres said that all of the passengers aboard the aircraft are adults.

“Please keep families in your thoughts at this time,” the fire department stated.

CNN reports that investigators are investigating two fatal incidents from the past week: a medevac jet crash in Philadelphia on January 31 that claimed seven lives and a midair collision between a US military Black Hawk helicopter and a passenger jet near Washington, DC, on January 29 that killed 67 people. These incidents come amid growing concerns about US air safety.

The emergency locator transmitter, which may broadcast distress signals to assist in finding downed planes, was not used by the plane to communicate, according to the fire department on Friday.

Each aircraft is equipped with an emergency locator transmitter, a device that, in the event that it comes into contact with saltwater, transmits a signal to a satellite, which then notifies the Coast Guard if an aircraft is “in distress,” according to McIntyre-Coble.

“The US Coast Guard has not received any ELT notifications. “We’re not completely clear about why that has happened or why that hasn’t happened,” McIntyre-Coble said.

According to a bureau spokeswoman who talked to CNN, the FBI was providing technological assistance for the search, including efforts to geolocate the passengers’ mobile phones. Employees at FBI field offices who have received specialized training in cellular telephone tower data analysis may help investigators determine a device’s last reported position.