Alaska Aircrews Searching For Missing Plane

Source: JARBAS OLIVEIRA / Getty

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 passangers and a pilot was overdue. There was no early word on their identities. The families of the passengers have been notified of the incident, the Nome Fire Volunteer Department.

This was the third major U.S. aviation incident in eight days. The first one was with an American Eagle flight and an Army Black Hawk colliding near Washington D.C. The second major one was in Northeast Philadelphia with a medical transportation plane crashing into the ground. The Bering Air Director of Operation David Olson said the Caravan 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.”

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 place is located.” But, due to weather and visibility, we are limited on air search at the current time. People were told not to form their own search parties because the weather was too dangerous.

Nome-based Bering Air serves 32 villages in western Alaska and also has hub in Kotzebue and Unalakleet. Most of the villages get scheduled flights twice a day.