Alaska Air Crash Kills 10
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
JUNEAU, ALASKA (Worthy News) – Residents in western Alaska plunged into mourning on Saturday after one of the deadliest air crashes in the U.S. state in the last 25 years killed all 10 people on board.
Authorities said remnants of the small plane were located Friday on sea ice where it came down on its way to the hub community of Nome.
Rescuers had been 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 reportedly lowered to investigate. The Bering Air flight was traveling in western Alaska, just south of the Arctic Circle, from Unalakleet to Nome, officials explained.
Unalakleet is a community of about 690 people in western Alaska, about 150 miles (about 240 kilometers) southeast of Nome and 395 miles (about 640 kilometers) northwest of Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city.
After it disappeared from radar, officials said several groups began searching for the plane, including Alaska State Troopers, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Alaska Air National Guard, the Alaska Army National Guard, and local search teams.
DIFFICULT SEARCH
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) provided technical assistance, including cellphone analysis, to help locate the aircraft.
Finding the aircraft in rugged and icy terrain had not been easy. Alaska State Troopers said they were notified about the missing plane on Thursday at 4 p.m. local time.
The U.S. Coast Guard confirmed on social media platform X the flight’s last known position was almost 12 miles (19 kilometers) offshore.
Early Friday, the Nome fire department announced it was conducting a ground search, but weather and poor visibility conditions were hampering its air search.
The department urged people not to form their own search parties because “of hazardous weather conditions” in the region, which is prone to sudden snow squalls and high winds.
Airplanes are often the only method of transportation between rural Alaskan villages, but what caused the crash was not immediately clear.
DOG RACE
Nome is well-known as the last stop in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, the annual long-distance sled dog race held in Alaska in early March.
This is the third major U.S. aviation incident in recent days. On January 29, a commercial airliner and an Army helicopter collided near Reagan National Airport outside Washington.
Two days later, a medical transport plane crashed into a Philadelphia neighborhood shortly after takeoff, killing six people onboard and another person on the street.
Following the January 29 crash, U.S. President Donald J. Trump ordered a review of whether air traffic controllers (ATC) gave pilots solid advice.
He suggested that ATC staff may have been hired not based on merit but under the “inclusive woke” policies of the previous Biden administration.
The union representing air traffic controllers rejected Trump’s claims. “Air traffic controllers earn the prestigious and elite status of being a fully certified professional controller after successfully completing a series of rigorous training milestones,” argued Nick Daniels, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. “The standards to achieve certification are not based on race or gender.”
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