Photo: AP
The bodies of all ten persons killed when their small plane crashed onto the ice in the Bering Sea have been found, authorities said.
The Nome Volunteer Fire Department announced the news on their Facebook page Saturday afternoon. Recovery personnel were racing to recover the dead before a winter storm reached the area.
“All ten individuals aboard the Bering Air plane have been officially brought home,” the fire department wrote in the social media post at about 3 p.m.
The fire department reported that they were still working to recover the aircraft. The Bering Air single-engine turboprop plane disappeared Thursday afternoon while flying from Unalakleet to Nome, the hub community.
It was discovered the next day after a thorough search, with all nine passengers and the pilot killed, making it one of the worst plane crashes in the state in 25 years, AP reported.
The aircraft is on an ice floe that is moving at a rate of around 5 miles (8 kilometres) per day, making recovery impossible, according to 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.
As the town dealt with the tragic occurrence, teams worked quickly on unstable, mushy sea ice to retrieve the bodies and the wreckage.
The National Weather Service issued a winter weather advisory, predicting snow and winds of up to 45 mph (72 km/h) for Saturday night and Sunday evening. Rhone Baumgartner and Kameron Hartvigson were among those killed in the crash.
According to the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, they travelled to Unalakleet to service a heat recovery system that is critical to the community's water plant.
“The loss of these two incredible individuals and everyone else on board the plane will be felt all over Alaska,” David Beveridge, vice president of environmental health and engineering for the organization, said in a statement.
The pilot, 34-year-old Nome resident Chad Antill, was also killed. The other victims' ages varied from 30 to 58. Lt. Ben Endres of the Alaska State Troopers said the flight was a normal commuter trip.