An aircraft with 10 people over Alaska’s Norton Sound south of the Arctic circle was missing on Thursday afternoon and the rescuers searched for a sign of the plane.
According to Alaska’s Ministry of Public Security, the Bering Air Caravan drove from Unalakleet to Nome with nine passengers and a pilot. The authorities were working to determine the last known coordinates.
Unalakleet is a community of around 690 people in Westalaska, about 240 kilometers southeast of Nome and 640 kilometers northwest of the Anchorage.
The disappearance marks the third big incident in the US air ride in eight days. A commercial jetliner and a helicopter from the US Army collided on January 29 near the capital of the nation and killed 67 people. A medical transport aircraft crashed into Philadelphia on January 31 and killed the six people on board and another person on site.
The Cessna Caravan left Unalakleet at 2:37 p.m. local time, and the officials lost contact with him less than an hour later, according to David Olson, director of operations for Bering Air. According to the US cake, the aircraft was 19 kilometers off the coast.
“The Bering Air employees are working hard to collect details, to receive emergency aid, search and save,” said Olson.
US Coast Guard to take part in the search
Bering Air serves 32 villages in Westalaska from Hubs in Nome, Kotzebue and Unalakleet. Most destinations receive flights planned twice a day from Monday to Saturday.
Airplanes are often the only option for travel in rural Alaska, especially in winter.
In a statement on social media, the Nome volunteer fire brigade said that land crews were looking for over the coast, from Nome to Topkok.
“Due to weather and visibility, we are limited at the current time,” it said. People were told that they should not form their own search celebrations because the weather was too dangerous.
In an update in the early Friday, the department said that “the crews are still looking for on site and advertise as much space as possible”, but “we have no updated information about the location of the missing aircraft”.
An aircraft crew of the US Coast Guard was expected to search the last known position of the lack of aircraft. The National Guard and the soldiers also helped search for the fire brigade.
According to the US National Weather Service, it was around the start in Unalakleet -8.3 ° C. It fell light snow and fog.
The names of the people on board have not yet been published.
Nome, a gold rush city, is located south of the Arctic circle and is known as the end point of the 1.610 kilometer Iditarod Trail Dog Race.
