A small regional flight that went missing in Alaska on Thursday, carrying nine passengers and a pilot, has been found, but no one on board is alive, the US Coast Guard confirmed on Friday.
#UPDATE (1/2) #USCG has ended its search for the missing plane after the aircraft was located approx. 34 miles southeast of Nome. 3 individuals were found inside and reported to be deceased. pic.twitter.com/XndzBYHdCE
— USCGAlaska (@USCGAlaska) February 8, 2025
According to the US Coast Guard Alaska, the small commuter aircraft was found Friday about 34 miles southeast of Nome, according to the USCG. Further, USCG Lt Commander Mike Salerno stated that two rescue swimmers identified three bodies inside the plane and the seven others “are believed to be inside the wreckage,” but they are inaccessible at this time.
The Cessna, operated by Bering Air, carried nine passengers and a pilot. It disappeared Thursday afternoon while flying from Unalakleet to Nome- cities in western Alaska separated by the Norton Sound inlet, as per the Alaska State Troopers. The Coast Guard said that it was about 12 miles offshore when its position was lost, according to the Coast Guard. The aircraft “experienced some kind of event which caused them to experience a rapid loss in elevation and a rapid loss in speed” around 3:18 pm local time Thursday, CNN reported, citing Coast Guard Lt. Commander Benjamin McIntyre-Coble’s statement.
Sharing the picture of the missing plane on X, the Coast Guard wrote, “#USCG has ended its search for the missing plane after the aircraft was located approx. 34 miles southeast of Nome. Three individuals were found inside and reported to be deceased.”
“The remaining 7 people are believed to be inside the aircraft but are currently inaccessible due to the condition of the plane. Our heartfelt condolences are with those affected by this tragic incident,” it added.
The official stated that the search for the aircraft had been complicated by the fact that the missing plane had not communicated its position through an emergency transmitter. Notably, bad weather slowed the search efforts on Thursday, making it hard for aircraft to locate the missing plane. Initial flights by C-130 crews from the Coast Guard and US Air Force turned up nothing, according to the Nome Volunteer Fire Department on Friday morning.
Before the plane was found, McIntyre-Coble, speaking at a news conference on Friday, said there was “some sort of item of interest” identified by an aircraft involved in the search efforts, and the Coast Guard was heading to its location. The fire department announced on Friday that all families of the passengers on the missing flight “have been notified” without elaborating; no names have been released. The passengers on the plane are all adults, Alaska State Troopers Lt. Ben Endres said at the news conference.
“Please keep families in your thoughts at this time,” the fire department said. According to CNN, this tragedy has come amid growing concerns over US air safety, with investigators looking into two deadly incidents from the previous week: a midair collision on January 29 between a US military Black Hawk helicopter and a passenger jet near Washington, DC, which killed 67 people, and a medevac jet crash on January 31 in Philadelphia that resulted in seven deaths.
The fire department said on Friday that the plane did not communicate through an emergency locator transmitter, a device that broadcasts distress signals to help locate downed aircraft. Every plane has an emergency locator transmitter, which, if exposed to seawater, sends a signal to a satellite. The satellite then relays that message back to the Coast Guard if there’s an aircraft “in distress,” McIntyre-Coble said.
“There have been no ELT notifications to the United States Coast Guard. Why that has occurred, or why that hasn’t occurred, is not something that we’re entirely clear about,” according to McIntyreCoble.
A bureau spokesperson told CNN that the FBI was assisting the search with technical resources, including working to geolocate the cell phones of the plane’s passengers. FBI field offices have personnel specially trained in analyzing cellular telephone tower data, which can help authorities locate a device’s last registered location.
