An aircraft carrying 10 people has gone missing from radar over Alaska sparking a frantic search.
The Bering Air Caravan vanished on Thursday afternoon and rescuers searched into the night for any sign of the aircraft.
It was on a flight from Unalakleet to Nome with nine passengers and a pilot, according to Alaska's Department of Public Safety.
A map from aircraft tracker FlightRadar24 showed the flight disappeared over Norton Sound, an inlet of the Bering Sea on the western coast of the US state, south of the Seward Peninsula.
The aircraft was 12 miles (19km) off shore over Alaska's Norton Sound, according to the US Coast Guard, when it vanished.
Local media are reporting a Bering Air flight is overdue at Nome and search & rescue efforts are now underway. #8E445 departed Unalakleet at 23:38 UTC (14:38 local)
— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) February 7, 2025
Last position received at 00:16 UTC
64.330212, -164.02679
5,300 feethttps://t.co/MgIBmtsp2U pic.twitter.com/N4bMUjni0q
The disappearance marks the third major incident in US aviation in eight days.
A commercial jetliner and an army helicopter collided near the nation's capital on January 29, killing 67 people. A medical transportation plane crashed in Philadelphia on January 31, killing the six people on board and another person on the ground.
Unalakleet is a community of about 690 people in western Alaska, about 150 miles (240km) southeast of Nome and 395 miles (640kms) northwest of Anchorage.
The Cessna Caravan left Unalakleet at 2.37pm, and officials lost contact with it less than an hour later, according to David Olson, director of operations for Bering Air.
"Staff at Bering Air are working hard to gather details, get emergency assistance, search and rescue going," Mr Olson said.
Bering Air serves 32 villages in western Alaska from hubs in Nome, Kotzebue and Unalakleet. Most destinations receive twice-daily scheduled flights from Monday through to Saturday.
Planes are often the only option for travel of any distance in rural Alaska, particularly in winter.
The Nome Volunteer Fire Department said in a statement on social media that ground crews were searching across the coast, from Nome to Topkok.
"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.
A US Coast Guard airplane crew was expected to search the missing aircraft's last known position. The National Guard and troopers were also helping with the search, according to the fire department.
It was minus 8.3C in Unalakleet around take-off, according to the National Weather Service. There was light snow falling and fog.
The names of the people onboard have not yet been released.
Nome, a Gold Rush town, is just south of the Arctic Circle and is known as the ending point of the 1,000-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.
