Search continues for missing plane in Alaska

The Alaska National Guard, State Police, the U.S. Coast Guard, and other emergency personnel on Friday continued to search for a plane that disappeared with 10 people aboard. The plane was en route from Unalakleet, Alaska, to Nome, Alaska, on Thursday when it went missing, the Nome Volunteer Fire Department reported. The plane was 12 miles offshore when its location was lost, the U.S. Coast Guard said.

What kind of plane was it? The small plane, a Bering Air Caravan, was carrying one pilot and nine passengers, the Alaska Department of Public Safety said on Thursday. Before it went missing, the pilot told air traffic control personnel in Anchorage, Alaska, that it was entering a holding pattern to wait for a chance to land, the Nome Volunteer Fire Department said.

What is being done to find it? The U.S. Coast Guard deployed a C-130 airplane to the area to look for the downed plane on Thursday. The plane carried equipment that allowed it to search for downed aircraft in zero-visibility conditions, the Nome Volunteer Fire Department said.

The U.S. Coast Guard reported Friday morning that a search by a HC-130 Hercules was unsuccessful and the Nome Volunteer Fire Department reported early Friday that two other C-130s sent by the U.S. National Guard and the Air Force were also unable to locate the plane.

Several hours later, the department said another Coast Guard C-130, as well as additional aircraft, were on their way to the area to assist in the search. The FBI was also deploying personnel to the area to see if they could find the group of missing passengers via cell phone tracking, the fire department said. The families of the people on the aircraft had been notified, the department added.

Dig deeper: Read Travis K. Kircher’s report in The Sift about the immediate emergency response to an airplane crash near Washington, D.C. late last month.