Rescuers in Alaska continued their search Friday for an airplane that went missing Thursday with nine passengers and a pilot onboard.
Several groups were involved in the search, including the Alaska State Troopers, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Alaska Air National Guard, the Alaska Army National Guard and local search teams.
Authorities said a Jayhawk helicopter was brought in Friday morning to help with the search.
The FBI was also providing technical assistance, including cellphone analysis, to help locate the aircraft.
The Bering Air Caravan flight was traveling in western Alaska, just south of the Arctic Circle, from Unalakleet to Nome. State troopers said they were notified Thursday at 4 p.m. about the plane’s disappearance.
The Coast Guard said on X that the flight was 19 kilometers offshore when its position was lost.
The families of the passengers have been notified, according to the Nome Volunteer Fire Department, but passengers’ names have not been released.
The fire department posted on X that it was conducting an active ground search, but weather and visibility conditions were hampering the department’s air search. The department urged people not to form their own search parties because of hazardous weather conditions in the region, which is prone to sudden snow squalls and high winds.
Airplanes are often the only method of transportation between rural Alaskan villages.
Nome is well-known as the last stop in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.
The missing flight is the third major U.S. aviation incident in recent days. On January 29, a commercial airliner and an Army helicopter collided near Washington’s Reagan National Airport. Two days later, a medical transportation plane crashed into a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, neighborhood shortly after takeoff, killing six people onboard and another person on the street.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press.
