Search & Rescue

The passenger plane that crashed near Nome last month, killing all 10 people on board, was hundreds of pounds overweight according to a preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board.

The NTSB released its first report Wednesday on the crash of Bering Air Flight 445. The Cessna Caravan was en route from Unalakleet to Nome. A massive search extending into the next day found the plane on an ice floe, which had been moving up to 10 miles per day, at a location 34 miles southeast of Nome.

The dead include:

34-year-old Chad Antill of Nome (pilot)
52-year-old Liane Ryan of Wasilla
58-year-old Donnell Erickson of Nome
30-year-old Andrew Gonzalez of Wasilla
41-year-old Kameron Hartvigson of Anchorage
46-year-old Rhone Baumgartner of Anchorage
52-year-old Jadee Moncur of Eagle River
45-year-old Ian Hofmann of Anchorage
34-year-old Talaluk Katchatag of Unalakleet
48-year-old Carol Mooers of Unalakleet

At the request of U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy visited Nome soon after the crash, one of the deadliest in recent Alaska history. Residents of the region came together to support families of the victims as well as Bering Air, which has flown in Northwest Alaska for 45 years.

‘A tremendous amount of information’

Clint Johnson, the NTSB’s Alaska chief, said Wednesday that investigators haven’t yet determined why the plane was overweight.

“There’s no way around that. Unfortunately, our estimations are that the airplane was about 1,000 pounds over gross (weight),” Johnson said.

Still, Johnson said, it isn’t yet clear what specific role the weight might have played in the plane’s crash and whether other factors were involved.

Johnson noted that investigators have recovered several avionics components from the plane, with data from them still being assessed.

“That has given us a tremendous amount of information,” he said. “We’re still poring over that information at this point.”

According to the report, the flight originated in Nome and headed to St. Michael and Unalakleet, before taking off on a return leg to Nome at 2:37 p.m. on Feb. 6. It headed to Nome at a cruising altitude of 8,000 feet, under instrument-only flight rules for a time, then began a planned descent to 6,000 feet just before 3 p.m.

At about 3:15 p.m., an air traffic controller informed the Caravan that the Nome airport’s runway was closed for about 10 to 15 minutes due to deicing.

“The controller added that if the pilot wanted to ‘slow down a little bit’ to prevent the flight from arriving before the runway reopened, that would be fine, and the pilot acknowledged,” investigators wrote.

A minute later, the controller asked the plane to descend to 4,000 feet, which the pilot acknowledged.

In about 15 minutes, between 3 p.m. and 3:15 p.m., the plane’s airspeed gradually fell from a peak of about 160 knots to 112 knots and continued to decrease. It had also turned from a westerly heading to a southerly one.

“At (3:19 p.m.), the autopilot disengaged,” investigators wrote. “At that time, the airplane’s airspeed was 99 knots. About 19 seconds later, the airspeed had decreased to about 70 knots, and the altitude was about 3,100 (feet above sea level) which was the end of the data available from the onboard avionics.”

A final data point from the plane’s avionics, at 3:20 p.m., showed it 32 miles east of Nome and 12 miles offshore over Norton Sound. Third-party satellite data eight seconds later showed it at an altitude of 200 feet.

“(One second later), the controller transmitted a low altitude alert to the pilot,” investigators said. “The controller’s efforts to contact the pilot were not successful, and no further communications were received.”

Plane was 969 pounds overweight, NTSB says

Antill’s pilot records showed that he had about 2,500 hours of flight time, including just over 1,000 hours in Cessna Caravans. He had flown with Bering Air since 2022, completing a Cessna cold-weather operations course in October and recurrent ground training in January.

The crashed Caravan was fitted with a TKS ice protection system, which Johnson called a “weeping wing” designed to dispense deicing fluid from wing and tail surfaces’ leading edges in flight. That system was mechanically functional based on examination of the wreckage, he said.

The plane was also fitted with a fuselage cargo pod, according to the NTSB. Preliminary calculations found that the plane’s gross takeoff weight was about 9,776 pounds.

“This was about 969 (pounds) over the maximum takeoff gross weight for flight into known or forecast icing conditions under the TKS system supplement,” investigators wrote. “It was also about 714 (pounds) over the maximum gross takeoff weight for any flight operation under (a) flight manual supplement.”

The report says Bering Air’s load manifest estimated that the plane was carrying about 709 pounds of baggage and cargo. A post-accident examination found that approximately 798 pounds was aboard at the time of the accident.

A weather report from the Nome airport at 3:45 p.m. noted light snow for about 10 minutes shortly after 3 p.m., as well as “trace precipitation” and “trace icing” just before 3 p.m.

Searchers had said no emergency locator transmitter signal was detected from the plane, which investigators at the crash site initially confirmed.

“However, the on-scene examination determined that the ELT had become disconnected from the antenna likely during the impact sequence,” investigators said. “When a portable ELT antenna was installed, a strong signal was heard from a handheld receiver.”

Bering Air crash was ‘eerily similar’ to 2021 incident

Johnson said the flight data, and the sequence of events it depicted, has led investigators to revisit a 2021 incident near Fairbanks in which a Wright Air Service Caravan suddenly dropped thousands of feet. Nobody was injured in that incident, but a final NTSB report found that the plane was overweight when it encountered icing and suffered an abrupt loss in airspeed, with its autopilot subsequently disengaging.

Johnson called the events of the 2021 altitude drop “eerily similar” to the Bering Air crash, although the Wright Air Service plane was fitted with a less-powerful engine. Autopilot procedures often call for them to be checked during flight in icing conditions, but what happened during last month’s Bering Air crash is still not clear, Johnson said.

“We are in the process of looking to see what the sequence of events were, as far as the airspeed drop, the disconnection (of) the autopilot,” he said. “Was that pilot-induced? Was that automatically done? We don’t know, but we are drilling down into that information as we speak right now to see if we can get a little bit better of an idea and understand the final moments of this flight.”

Johnson said Wednesday that a total of 15 to 20 people are involved in the crash investigation, including NTSB officials and expert sources whom they are consulting. A final investigation report is expected in 12 to 18 months.

Alaska State Troopers have named the three heli-skiers killed in Tuesday’s massive avalanche near Girdwood, with recovery efforts still pending due to dangerous conditions in the area.

In an updated report Thursday morning, troopers said David Linder and Charles Eppard, both 39, and Jeremy Leif, 38, were killed in the slide near the west fork of Twentymile River. The men were from Florida, Montana and Minnesota, respectively.

They were on a backcountry ski trip with friends, Minnesota Public Radio reported, with a fundraising page describing it as a trip of a lifetime in Alaska. The men were skiing with Girdwood-based Chugach Powder Guides.

Minnesota ties

Linder most recently lived in Miami but was born and raised in Mankato, Minn., according to the Minnesota Star Tribune. He co-owned several radio stations across Minnesota and leaves behind a wife and three young sons. His managing partner at Radio Mankato, Matt Ketelsen, described Linder as an experienced skier and devoted father.

“Whenever we would talk on the phone, we would just talk about each other’s kids,” he told the Minnesota newspaper. “First and foremost he was about his kids.”

The Star Tribune said the other two skiers also had ties to the state: Leif was a Minneapolis resident and Eppard had attended a college in St. Peter.

Eppard is survived by his wife and their daughter. A fundraising page set up for his family describes him as “a loving father, devoted husband, incredibly thoughtful and hardworking employee and an overall amazing human being.”

The three skiers were buried in a huge avalanche Tuesday afternoon in an area that’s only reachable by air, just northeast of Girdwood. Troopers said guides with the heli-ski company attempted to rescue the men but they were buried between 40 and 100 feet deep.

A fourth skier who was in the group and not caught in the avalanche was safely rescued, according to a lawyer representing the heli-ski company.

The lawyer could not be reached Thursday and an employee who answered the phone at the company declined to comment.

Initial efforts to revisit the avalanche site Wednesday were prevented by poor weather. Troopers said they, along with avalanche and recovery experts, were again attempting Thursday to conduct an aerial assessment of the slide.

Dangerous conditions continue

Meanwhile, avalanche danger persists.

The Chugach National Forest Avalanche Information Center’s Thursday forecast for the area indicated very dangerous avalanche conditions at elevations above 1,000 feet. Additional snowfall Wednesday had overloaded a weak layer of snow, creating the possibility of both natural and human-triggered avalanches.

“Travel in avalanche terrain is not recommended,” forecasters wrote.

Andrew Schauer, a forecaster at the center, said Thursday morning that the situation posed the threat of sudden avalanches at any time.

“We are concerned with those dangerous conditions, since it won’t be immediately apparent to people out there for the recovery or people in the area,” he said.

Alaska State Troopers say three heli-skiers are presumed dead after they were caught in a massive avalanche Tuesday near Girdwood.

Troopers said in an online dispatch that the avalanche caught the skiers at about 3:30 p.m. near the west fork of the Twentymile River, about 8 miles northeast of the Girdwood airport in an area only accessible by air. Guides from the heli-skiing company they were flying with immediately tried to locate them.

“Using avalanche beacons, the guides identified a probable area where skiers were buried between 40 feet and nearly 100 feet deep,” troopers said.

Troopers spokesman Austin McDaniel said the heli-skiing flight was operated by Girdwood-based Chugach Powder Guides. A person who answered the company’s phone Wednesday declined to comment. A Homer lawyer specializing in recreation and adventure law, who told the Anchorage Daily News she was acting as a spokesperson for the heli-skiing company, refused to comment to Alaska Public Media.

Troopers have not yet released the skiers’ names.

McDaniel said in a text message Wednesday morning that none of the skiers are thought to have lived.

“Based on the information provided by the operator, unfortunately, we do not believe that any of the three missing persons survived the avalanche,” he said.

No other recovery efforts were made Tuesday due to avalanche risk and limited daylight, troopers said. The scene will be assessed Wednesday to determine whether further work to recover the skiers can be safely conducted.

Tracey Knutson, the lawyer acting as a spokesperson for Chugach Powder Guides, gave the Anchorage Daily News a detailed account of what happened in the slide, from the heli-ski company’s point of view.

Knutson told the ADN that the skiers were on a regular run for the company and that witnesses saw all three skiers activate avalanche airbags when the slide started, at an elevation of about 3,500 feet. One person who was in the group and not caught in the avalanche was safely rescued, Knutson told the ADN.

Three guides reached the debris, which had slid about 2,800 feet, and detected three signals from beacons the buried skiers wore, Knutson told the ADN.

The Chugach National Forest Avalanche Information Center reported considerable avalanche danger in the area Tuesday at elevations above 1,000 feet. Its forecast noted the possibility of human-triggered avalanches, with up to 2 feet of wind-blown snow atop a frost layer. The forecast advised avoiding steep slopes.

Knutson refused to answer any questions from Alaska Public Media, including about what safety measures the guides took, how they decided to take clients skiing with “considerable” avalanche danger in the area or what decisions led to three skiers, an uncommonly high number, getting caught and buried. She said such questions were inappropriate as the recovery effort was still under way.

According to the Alaska Avalanche Information Center, the state’s last avalanche that killed three people occurred on Bear Mountain near Chugiak in February of 2021. Troopers said at the time that three climbers ascending a technical route of the mountain were found dead, beneath what appeared to be a recent avalanche.

In its Wednesday forecast, Chugach National Forest avalanche forecasters said the Twentymile River slide was accompanied by other human-triggered avalanches Tuesday. Staff offered their condolences to friends and family, urging people to “avoid traveling on or below steep or consequential terrain” due to dangerous avalanche conditions.

Calls to the forecasters went unreturned Wednesday morning.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

A fishing boat with one person believed to be aboard remains lost in Southeast Alaska waters near Ketchikan, a week after it was reported missing.

The 43-foot commercial geoduck clam dive boat Canis Majoris was last heard from Feb. 20 just north of Thorne Bay on Prince of Wales Island. The U.S. Coast Guard picked up an emergency radio transmission from the vessel at about 6:30 p.m. that evening.

Coast Guard Petty Officer John Hightower said Guardsmen responded aboard the cutter John McCormick, a 45-foot fast response boat dispatched from Ketchikan and a Jayhawk helicopter from Air Station Sitka. According to Hightower, crews sought the Canis Majoris for about 25 hours before suspending the search.

“They have a large number of factors that they take into account to determine the survivability of the person that’s being searched for,” Hightower said. “So they use all those factors to determine the optimal survivability of the missing person and how long it would be reasonable to search for them before shifting into a recovery position.”

Hightower said the Coast Guard has no word that anyone else was aboard the boat when it disappeared.

“It’s estimated that it was only the owner/operator,” he said. “Next of kin were contacted, and all the possible or suggested crew members and deckhands for the vessel were all contacted and they were confirmed to not be on the vessel.”

Canis Majoris is registered in the Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission database to a Ketchikan man named David Klein. Alaska State Troopers listed Klein as a missing person on Saturday.

Hightower said when watchstanders received the distress signal they alerted the Alaska Marine Highway System ferry Hubbard, which was nearby in Clarence Strait en route to Juneau.

AMHS spokesman Sam Dapcevich told the Ketchikan Daily News that the Hubbard didn’t have passengers aboard at the time. She was headed to Juneau to resume service after an overhaul at Ketchikan’s Vigor shipyard. Dapcevich told the paper that the ferry sent crew on a speedboat to the site of the distress call. They found a life raft and floating debris but no survivors. The weather got worse and the ferry crew had to return to safety.

The Coast Guard asks anyone with information on Klein or the Canis Majoris to contact Ketchikan troopers at 907-225-5118, or the Coast Guard Southeast Alaska Command Center at 907-463-2980.

Authorities in Haines have suspended their search for a man who reportedly fell into Chilkoot Lake while ice skating on Thursday. In a dispatch, state troopers said local author Thomas McGuire, 79, had gone skating alone and failed to return, and that his vehicle was found in a parking lot near the lake. The dispatch said McGuire’s next of kin had been notified.

Late on Thursday afternoon, the Haines Volunteer Fire Department received a report that a skater had fallen through the ice at Chilkoot Lake. The call came from another skater, who used a Garmin inReach device to alert authorities. That person reported hearing – but not seeing – someone fall through the ice.

Jacques Turcotte, the Haines district park ranger, was the first person on the scene, at around 4:15 pm. He said he ran the search-and-rescue operation because Haines doesn’t currently have a local trooper, and the accident happened around a state park.

When the search-and-rescue team arrived, Turcotte said they found the person who called in the accident and ensured they got off the ice safely. Turcotte said the team made it more than a mile across the lake, but it became clear that it wouldn’t be safe to go any further to look for the missing skater.

“The ice was cracking, and water was bubbling up beneath my feet. So we turned back. At that point, with darkness coming in and unsafe ice conditions, we were unable to locate the victim,” Turcotte said.

Turcotte went up in a plane at first light Friday morning to scour the area. He saw pockets of open water near the far end of the lake, and he thinks that was where the skater fell in. But he said the search is no longer active, and authorities are focusing on recovering the victim.

“At this point, with no signs of life and no signs of a body and with ice conditions being what they are being, it’s too unstable and unsafe to send rescuers out onto the ice,” Turcotte said.

McGuire is a long-time Alaska resident. His most recent book, The Curve of Equal Time, tells the story of a woman who returns to Alaska from Seattle to work on a salmon fishing boat. He also published a book called Steller’s Orchid in 2019.

McGuire and his wife, Sally McGuire, built their home on the Chilkoot River, where they raised four children.

Haines residents have been skating at Chilkoot all week during a long spell of clear weather. But authorities are advising against that now due to unstable ice created by warmer temperatures, which Turcotte said can rapidly change conditions.

“Lake ice is inherently dangerous and unpredictable, and it can change quickly. You know, we’ve had cold temperatures,” he said. “We’ve also been getting warmer temperatures throughout the days, and it’s been sunny out too, and that affects everything as well.”

He advises people to skate with a partner, to wear life jackets when they skate, to continuously check ice thickness, and to bring rescue supplies. Among them: ropes, throw bags and ice picks that can be used to climb out of the water or help someone else do the same.

Update, Friday:

No survivors were found on board the Bering Air plane that went missing in the Nome area Thursday when searchers discovered it Friday afternoon, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

In a post on X, the Coast Guard said three people were found dead inside of the plane. The agency did not mention the other seven on board.

The plane was found about 34 miles southeast of Nome, the Coast Guard said.

Original story:

City officials plan to hold a press conference at 5 p.m. to provide further details. KNOM will livestream the conference on its Facebook, YouTube and radio signals.

A massive search is ongoing Friday for a Bering Air plane with 10 on board that departed Unalakleet Thursday and failed to arrive in Nome, officials said.

Flight records indicate that Bering Air flight 455, a Cessna 208B Grand Caravan, was flying at around 3,400 feet when it stopped transmitting its location at 3:18 p.m. It was scheduled to arrive in Nome about 10 minutes later. Nine passengers and one pilot were on board the regularly-scheduled flight, officials say.

During a Friday news conference, Coast Guard Lt. Benjamin McIntyre-Coble said an “item of interest” had been discovered and was being checked out by search aircraft. Crucial information about the missing plane’s last moments airborne came from Civil Air Patrol radar data.

“Part of that radar analysis showed that at around 3:18 p.m. yesterday afternoon, this aircraft experienced some kind of event which caused them to experience a rapid loss in elevation and a rapid loss in speed,” he said.

Officials said they did not have information yet about what led to the plane’s sudden drop. Nome’s fire chief, Jim West Jr., had said in an interview Thursday night that the pilot planned to stay in a holding pattern over Cape Nome until the runway cleared. Then the plane disappeared.

At the time of the plane’s disappearance, the National Weather Service reported visibility of just one mile in Nome, with light snow falling. McIntyre-Cole described weather conditions in the area as “pretty challenging” Thursday, noting that they forced an Alaska Air National Guard helicopter to turn back that evening. Although weather had improved Friday, conditions remained cold.

“The air temperature in the vicinity of the last known position is about 3 degrees,” he said. “The sea temperature, depending on the status of the ice, is about 29 degrees..”

Coast Guardsmen and troopers declined to identify those aboard the plane, but said all of them were adults. Their families have been notified, according to the Nome Volunteer Fire Department. “Please keep families in your thoughts at this time,” said the department’s online update.

Clint Johnson, the National Transportation Safety Board’s Alaska chief, said numerous NTSB personnel were headed to Nome Friday.

“We have a pretty large response coming from Washington, D.C., from various locations in the air, in the neighborhood of nine people,” Johnson said.

No signs of the aircraft overnight

The U.S. Coast Guard is leading search efforts Friday morning, with support from troopers, the Alaska National Guard, the FBI and local volunteers. The Coast Guard reported that the plane was 12 miles offshore when its position was lost.The search by air Thursday night was mostly focused over the water and infrared imagery returned no strong indicators of the plane’s location. The plane has not sent any alerts via its emergency locator transmitter, according to the Nome Volunteer Fire Department.

The department said Friday morning that weather for the next 24 hours looked stable for continuing the search by air, and local rescue groups would continue searching by snowmachine. A base with supplies and fuel has been established 16 miles east of town.

West said that overnight aerial surveys found no signs of the aircraft. As of Friday morning, two Bering Air King Airs, a Black Hawk helicopter and a MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter were among the aircraft involved in the search. The Coast Guard was also planning to drop a buoy to track ice movement in the area, firefighters said.

All commercial Bering Air flights for Friday have been grounded.

Clint Johnson, the National Transportation Safety Board’s Alaska chief, said an investigator traveled to Nome on Friday morning, with a full team en route. The FBI’s Anchorage office said it also sent a team to provide “cellular analysis,” which firefighters said might help locate the flight through signals from the cellphones on board.

All families of passengers on the missing flight have been notified, the local fire department said. “Please keep families in your thoughts at this time,” said the department’s online update. Norton Sound Health Corporation announced Thursday evening it had set up a space for family members in its third floor conference room.

A representative from Bering Air confirmed the flight number, departure time and the time of the plane’s disappearance, but declined to say more. Bering Air, based in Nome, is a major regional air carrier serving 32 communities along Alaska’s northwest coast.

 Weather hampers early air search

National Weather Service meteorologist Jonathan Chriest said that the Nome area saw snowy conditions and visibility between 1 and 3 miles for most of Thursday. Conditions cleared slightly between 2 and 4 p.m, but after that, light freezing drizzle returned and transitioned back to snow later in the evening.

“There was a period of good visibility around 3 p.m., up to 10 miles,” Chriest said. “Then visibility later on in the afternoon diminished back down to near a mile, with a short period of visibility at half a mile.”

Overnight into Friday, volunteer crews from Nome and White Mountain searched by snowmachine for signs of the plane. Danielle Sem, a spokesperson for the Nome Volunteer Fire Department, said the initial effort was a ground-only search “because of the weather and icing.”

West said a Bering Air helicopter tried to search for the plane Thursday but turned around near Cape Nome, citing high winds and low visibility.

West said the city had provided a grader to plow 16 miles of road to the east of Nome for a staging area. While finding the plane is the first priority, he said windy weather and deep snow would make the work difficult.

“The next goal is, how do we get out there to get to them? Right? That’s going to be the challenge,” West said on Thursday night.

The search area includes the land east of Nome, where an occasional grove of willows breaks up the treeless tundra, and the Bering Sea just off the coast. Satellite imagery confirmed the presence of sea ice extending a half-mile from the shore.

‘It hits home for everyone’

Norton Sound Health Corporation announced Thursday evening it had set up a space for family members in its third floor conference room.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy and Alaska’s congressional delegation offered prayers for those aboard the missing plane via social media Friday.

“Rose and I are heartbroken by the disappearance of the Bering Air flight over Norton Sound,” Dunleavy said. “Our prayers are with the passengers, the pilot, and their loved ones during this difficult time.”

“Our prayers are with all those on the plane missing out of western Alaska, the Bering Air family, and the entire community of Nome,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski.

Sen. Dan Sullivan said Friday morning that he had asked NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy to visit Alaska – “and to her credit, she’s doing that this weekend.”

“My team and I stand ready to assist the community of Nome and (Gov. Dunleavy) in any way we can,” said Rep. Nick Begich.

The state Senate held a moment of silence in Juneau to mark word of the missing plane. State Rep. Neal Foster, D-Nome, posted links to news updates about the search on his Facebook page.

“Many thanks for keeping those on board and their families in your prayers,” Foster said.

Sem praised the response from local volunteers, who turned out in force Thursday to search for the plane at night, in 10-degree temperatures.

“When something happens here in small communities, in the small region that we live in, it hits home for everybody,” Sem said. “Because if you don’t know them, somebody else knows them.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the time the plane was scheduled to land in Nome and its altitude when it stopped transmitting its location.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Alaska Desk reporter Alena Naiden contributed reporting from Anchorage.