The wreckage of the small plane that went missing flying over Alaska was found Friday on sea ice — with all 10 on board dead, authorities said.
Coast Guard spokesperson Mike Salerno said rescue crews located the plane by helicopter while scouring over the aircraft’s last known location and lowered two rescue swimmers to investigate.
The two swimmers identified three bodies inside the plane, while seven others are believed to be inside the wreckage but were inaccessible due to the condition of the aircraft, the US Coast Guard Alaska said in a statement on X.
The Cessna Caravan carrying nine passengers and one pilot left Unalakleet around 2:37 p.m. Thursday and was headed for Nome, about 150 miles away, but lost contact with officials less than an hour later.
Authorities are now working furiously to recover the wreckage – located 34 miles southeast of Nome – from the slushy sea ice before a storm is expected to roll in this weekend.
“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 Friday.
Officials on Friday also said the plane experienced a “rapid loss” in elevation and speed just before vanishing.
Around 3:18 p.m. Thursday, the plane had “some kind of event which caused them to experience a rapid loss in elevation and a rapid loss in speed,” US Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Benjamin McIntyre-Coble said Friday before the wreckage was found. “What that event is, I can’t speculate to.”
The single-engine plane was at max capacity when it disappeared over Alaska’s Norton Sound, according to the state Department of Public Safety.
Coast Guard officials said the plane went missing about 30 miles southeast of Nome and about 12 miles offshore.
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All nine passengers were adults, though none of their identities have been released.
The Alaska plane crash is the third major US aviation tragedy in a week.
Last Wednesday, an American Airlines flight crashed into an Army helicopter near Washington, DC, killing 67 people.
Two days later a medical transportation plane crashed in Philadelphia, killing six people on board and another person on the ground.
With Post wires
