A Cessna Caravan aircraft carrying the pilot and nine passengers from Unalakleet to Nome (Alaska) has vanished. Searchers are currently braving the Alaska winter searching for the missing aircraft, but as of this writing, there is no trace of the plane or its passengers.
The Caravan left Unalakleet at 2:37 p.m., and officials lost contact with it less than an hour later, according to David Olson, director of operations for Bering Air. The flight path to Nome takes planes over Norton Sound, which was partly but not entirely ice-covered this week.
The aircraft was 12 miles offshore, the U.S. Coast Guard said. It was operating at its maximum passenger capacity, according to the airline’s description of the plane.
“Staff at Bering Air is working hard to gather details, get emergency assistance, search and rescue going,” Olson said.
The roughly one-hour air route from Unalakleet to Nome is almost entirely an over-water flight, and the plane was reportedly over Norton Sound when it was last detected. Volunteers are searching portions of the Cessna’s likely route that would have taken it over land.
The Nome Volunteer Fire Department on Thursday said members were conducting an active ground search between Nome and White Mountain but weather and visibility were limiting aerial search capacity. In an update, the fire department said search crews had covered ground from Nome to Topkok along the coast.
“We do not have any updated information on the location of the missing aircraft,” the department said in an update very early Friday morning. “Crews are still searching on the ground, canvassing as much area as possible.”
This is a wild part of Alaska. To the north of the plane’s likely route lie the villages of Shaktoolik, Golovin, and White Mountain, as well as the Elim Indian Reservation, which includes the villages of Elim and the Moses Point Fishing Village. None of these communities have a permanent population over 500, and all are well to the north of the plane’s likely flight path.
A National Transportation Safety Board representative is already reported to be on the way.
A National Transportation Safety Board investigator was en route to Nome Friday morning, according to Clint Johnson, chief of the agency’s Alaska office. A full team of investigators was expected to follow, he said.
Hopefully, by the time the NTSB team arrives, there will be some more information; at the moment, sadly, all we have is a light airplane that has been swallowed up by Alaska.
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Alaska’s vastness and the necessity of light airplane travel present complications in these matters that don’t apply over much of the lower 48. Many air routes take passengers over huge expanses of wilderness; in fact, in 1972, the grandfather of Alaska’s current at-large Representative Nick Begich III, Nick Begich Sr., while running on the Democrat ticket for that same at-large seat, disappeared while flying in a twin-engine Cessna from Anchorage to Juneau. That aircraft was never found, and the passengers and crew were later declared dead; ironically, the senior Begich won the Congressional election posthumously, but the follow-up special election was won by Republican State Senator Don Young, who held the Alaska at-large House seat until he died in 2022.
This is a developing story. We will bring you updates as events warrant.
