On Friday evening, the U.S. Coast Guard announced on social media that they had found a plane that went missing the day before off the coast of Alaska, stating that there are no signs of survivors. The Bering Air Caravan flight carrying nine passengers and a pilot aboard a Cessna 208B was due to land in Nome from Unalakleet, a roughly hour-long journey westward over the Norton Sound.
The Alaska State Troopers were first contacted about the plane at 4 p.m. on February 6th by the Alaska Rescue Coordination Center, with searches for the plane beginning on the morning of the 7th. In a statement on X, the the U.S. Coast Guard announced that the search was over on the evening of the 7th, stating that the “aircraft was located approx. 34 miles southeast of Nome.” They also said in a subsequent post that the bodies of three people aboard the plane were found near the site, while the remaining seven were presumed to be inside the plane but “inaccessible” due to its condition.
The Bering Air Caravan crash marks the third aircraft incident in as many weeks. On January 29th, an American Airlines jet collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter shortly before landing at Ronald Reagan Airport in Washington D.C., killing all 67 people aboard both aircraft, making it the deadliest disaster of its kind since 2001. Just two days later, a Learjet 55 crashed just after taking off outside of Philadelphia, killing all six people on the plane and one on the ground in the suburb where it went down. The National Transportation Safety Board is charged with investigating each incident.
