A plane matching the one that went missing in Alaska with 10 aboard has been found, and there all those aboard have died, authorities have confirmed.
The U.S. Coast Guard said the aircraft had been found approximately 34 miles southeast of of Nome. Three bodies had been found along with the wreckage.
The remaining seven people were believed to be inside the aircraft but were currently inaccessible due to the condition of the plane. “Our heartfelt condolences are with those affected by this tragic incident,” the USCG said.
Bering Air Flight 445 was reported missing just before 4 p.m. local time on Thursday while en route from Unalakleet to Nome in the west of Alaska.
The Cessna 208B Grand Caravan had been carrying nine adult passengers and a pilot on a “regular commuter flight” before it disappeared during a brutal winter storm.
Search and rescue crews scoured the ground throughout the night on Thursday, continuing operations all-day on Friday. The families of all those on board had been informed, authorities said.
At an updated press conference on Friday afternoon USCG Lieutenant Commander Ben McIntyre-Coble said that the “some kind of event” had caused the aircraft to “rapidly lose altitude and speed,” but that the exact cause was unknown.
Coble added that at the time that operations were still “search and rescue. “We are operating under the assumption right now that there are still people who are in a position to be assisted by the United States Coast Guard,” he said.
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“We continue to have air assets overhead and are in close coordination with the with the local authorities, including the Alaska State Troopers, to provide potentially on-the-ice assistance to any persons who might be found.
“But at this time we are still considering that this is an active search and rescue case, and we have no immediate intentions to change the status of the case in the near term.”
The plane took off from Unalakleet, a small community of 690 people, at 2:37 p.m., and officials lost contact with it less than an hour later, according to the director of operations for Bering Air, David Olson. It went off radio roughly 10 minutes before its scheduled arrival in Nome.
It was approximately 12 miles offshore flying over the Norton Sound, according to the USCG.
The tragic incident is the third deadly aviation disaster to occur on U.S. soil in less than two weeks.
A mid-air collision between an American Airlines jet and a U.S. military Black Hawk helicopter in Washington, DC took the lives of 67 people last Wednesday.
Two days later, a medical jet crashed in Northeast Philadelphia, killing seven people, including all six passengers on board.
