Alaska authorities are searching for a commercial airplane that disappeared on Thursday, February 6, in the state. It is a Cessna 208 Caravan operated by Bering Air, carrying nine passengers and a pilot. This incident marks the third aviation accident in the United States in the last ten days.
The plane, which departed from Unalakleet heading to Nome, disappeared around 3:20 PM local time on Thursday. According to the Nome fire department, the pilot communicated his intention to wait for the runway to clear, but shortly after the call, the aircraft lost altitude and completely disappeared from radar.
Search teams, including the Coast Guard and the U.S. Air Force, have been deployed for both land and air operations amid challenging weather conditions. It is hoped that the plane has landed and has not fallen into the sea, where temperatures are freezing.
Bering Air, the company to which the missing plane belongs, operates flights to 32 villages in western Alaska from hubs in Nome, Kotzebue, and Unalakleet. The Nome Volunteer Fire Department has reported that ground teams are tracking along the west coast of Alaska, while aerial searches are limited by weather.
This incident adds to two others that recently occurred in the United States: a collision between a military helicopter and a commercial airplane in Washington that resulted in 67 fatalities, and an accident involving an air ambulance in Philadelphia where six Mexican nationals lost their lives.
