Alaska plane crash updates: Bodies of all 10 victims now recovered

All 10 victims of the Alaska regional airline crash have been recovered, officials revealed on Saturday.

The Nome Volunteer Fire Department said in a Facebook post that “All ten individuals aboard the Bering Air plane have been officially brought home to Nome. Nome SAR efforts stand by for our Bering Air crew to complete their aircraft recovery operations.”

“We thank the Airforce for their main role in the recovery efforts for the sake of our community team,” they added.

All those aboard died in the crash, authorities previously confirmed.

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 U.S. 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 Jan. 31, killing the six people on board and another person on the ground.

Radar forensic data provided by the U.S. Civil Air Patrol indicated that about 3:18 p.m., 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 U.S. 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.

“It’s hard to accept the reality of our loss,” U.S. Sen. 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 2:37 p.m. Thursday, 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 17 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 8.3 degrees Celsius), according to the National Weather Service.

The Coast Guard said the aircraft went missing about 30 miles (48 kilometers) southeast of Nome.

As the community tried to process the deadly event, crews worked swiftly on unstable, slushy sea ice to recover the bodies and the wreckage. The National Weather Service issued a winter weather advisory, with snow and winds up to 45 miles per hour (72 kilometers per hour) expected to hit the region Saturday night, lasting into Sunday evening.

Officials said a Black Hawk helicopter would be used to move the aircraft once the bodies were removed.

John Dougherty, a spokesperson with the Alaska State Troopers, said the Alaska National Guard was among the entities helping with body recovery efforts.

The Alaska National Guard said two helicopters, a cargo aircraft and a team of pararescuemen were assisting in the recovery efforts.

Authorities in western Alaska raced on Saturday to recover the remains of 10 people killed in a commuter plane crash from unstable sea ice before expected high winds and snow.

The aircraft is on an ice floe that is drifting about 5 miles (8 kilometers) a day, creating difficult conditions for recovery crews, said National Transportation Safety Board chair Jennifer Homendy during a press conference Saturday afternoon.

“Please know that we’ll work diligently to determine how this happened with the ultimate goal of improving safety in Alaska and across the United States,” said Homendy. The first priority is victim recovery, she said.

The Nome Volunteer Fire Department wrote on Facebook that they were using a window in the weather to try to “bring Bering passengers and crew home today” from one of the deadliest plane crashes in the state in 25 years.

The Bering Air single-engine turboprop plane was traveling from Unalakleet to the hub community of Nome when it disappeared Thursday afternoon. It was found the next day after an extensive search with all nine passengers and the pilot dead.

More than most officials, the newly confirmed Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has been thrown directly into crisis since joining the administration, with a string of air disasters taking place this month.

As progressive political commentator Brian Tyler Cohen points out, Duffy was a sharp critic of his Democratic predecessor Pete Buttigieg.

Time will tell if Duffy faces the same kind of pressures.

Officials are still searching for information on why a Bering Air plane fell off radar then crashed on Thursday during a flight between Unalakleet and Nome.

“This aircraft experienced some kind of event which caused them to experience a rapid loss in elevation and a rapid loss in speed,” Ben McIntyre-Coble with the U.S Coast Guard said on Friday.

“You know, it’s February in Alaska and the weather has not been fantastic,” he added.

This week’s plane crash in Alaska is the latest in a string of freak accidents across U.S. skies this year.

At the beginning of this month, an American Airlines regional jet and a U.S. Army helicopter collided mid-air near Ronald Reagan National Airport, killing all 67 people onboard.

Two days later, a medical jet carrier a child patient from Mexico crashed into a residential neighborhood shortly after taking off from a Philadelphia-area airport.

The Trump administration has vowed to fix the problem, with Elon Musk’s DOGE team saying it will “plug in” to the air traffic control system.