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Just hours after finding 10 people dead in western Alaska from one of the deadliest plane crashes in the state in 25 years, authorities raced to recover their remains and the wreckage of the small commuter plane from unstable sea ice before expected high winds and snow.
“The conditions out there are dynamic, so we’ve got to do it safely in the fastest way we can,” Jim West, chief of the Nome Volunteer Fire Department, said Saturday.
The Bering Air single-engine turboprop plane was travelling from Unalakleet to the hub community of Nome when it disappeared Friday. It was found the next day after an extensive search with all nine passengers and the pilot dead.
As the community tried to process the deadly event, crews worked swiftly on unstable, slushy sea ice to recover the bodies and the wreckage with less than a day before bad weather was expected. Officials said a Black Hawk helicopter would be used to move the aircraft once the bodies were removed.
Among those killed in the crash were Rhone Baumgartner and Kameron Hartvigson. They had travelled to Unalakleet to service a heat recovery system vital to the community’s water plant, according to the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium.
“These two members of our team lost their lives serving others,” David Beveridge, vice president of environmental health & engineering for the organization, said in a statement. "The loss of these two incredible individuals and everyone else on board the plane will be felt all over Alaska.”
The other people’s names have not been released.
All 10 people on board the plane were adults, and the flight was a regularly scheduled commuter trip, according to Lt Ben Endres of the Alaska State Troopers.
A photo provided by the Coast Guard showed the plane’s splintered body and debris lying on the sea ice. Two people in brightly coloured emergency gear circled the wreckage.
“It’s hard to accept the reality of our loss,” US Senator Lisa Murkowski said during an evening news conference.
Nome Mayor John Handeland choked up as he discussed the deaths and the response effort.
“Nome is a strong community, and in challenging times, we come together and support each other. I expect the outpouring of support to continue in the coming days as we all work to recover from this tragic incident,” Handeland said.
The Cessna Caravan left Unalakleet at 2.37pm Thursday (local time), and officials lost contact with it less than an hour later, according to David Olson, director of operations for Bering Air. There was light snow and fog, with a temperature of -8.3C, according to the National Weather Service.
The Coast Guard said the aircraft went missing about 48 kilometres southeast of Nome.
Radar forensic data provided by the US Civil Air Patrol indicated that at about 3.18pm, the plane had “some kind of event which caused them to experience a rapid loss in elevation and a rapid loss in speed,” Coast Guard Lt Cmdr Benjamin McIntyre-Coble said. “What that event is, I can't speculate to.”
McIntyre-Coble said he was unaware of any distress signals from the aircraft. Planes carry an emergency locating transmitter. If exposed to seawater, the device sends a signal to a satellite, which then relays that message back to the Coast Guard to indicate an aircraft may be in distress. No such messages were received by the Coast Guard, he said.
Rescuers were searching the aircraft’s last known location by helicopter when the wreckage was spotted, said Mike Salerno, a spokesperson for the US Coast Guard. Two rescue swimmers were lowered to investigate.
Local, state and federal agencies had assisted in the search effort, combing stretches of ice-dotted waters and scouring miles of frozen tundra.
The National Transportation Safety Board was sending nine people to the scene from various states.
Flying is an essential mode of transportation in Alaska due to the vastness of the landscape and limited infrastructure. Most communities are not connected to the developed road system that serves the state’s most populous region, and it’s common to travel by small plane.
Some high school teams fly to sporting events against rival high schools, and goods are brought to many communities by barge or by air.
The plane's crash marks the third major US aviation mishap in eight days. A commercial jetliner and an Army helicopter collided near the nation’s capital on Jan. 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.
Bering Air serves 32 villages in western Alaska from hubs in Nome, Kotzebue and Unalakleet. Most destinations receive twice-daily scheduled flights Monday through Saturday.
A small commuter plane that crashed in western Alaska was located this afternoon on sea ice and all 10 people on board died, authorities said.
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Unalakleet is a community of about 690 people about 240 kilometres southeast of Nome and about 640 kilometres northwest of Anchorage. The village is on the Iditarod trail, route of the world's most famous sled dog race, during which mushers and their teams must cross the frozen Norton Sound.
Nome, a Gold Rush town, is just south of the Arctic Circle and is known as the ending point of the 1,610-kilometre Iditarod. The city said prayer vigils would be held Saturday for those on board the plane, friends and family and those involved in search efforts.
