Authorities said on Saturday that they have discovered and identified the corpses of all 10 people on board a Cessna 208B Grand Caravan that crashed on Thursday, even as the debris floats on an ice floe in the Bering Sea.
The ice floe, which was around 54 kilometers out to sea in Nome, Alaska, was composed of mushy ice, and officials warned that the weather would turn bad on Sunday, bringing with it 45 mph gusts and snow. As a result, time was of the importance.
In a Facebook post on Saturday evening, the Nome Volunteer Fire Department stated that all ten people on board the Bering Air aircraft had been formally welcomed home.
The US Coast Guard, US Air Force, and other organizations worked together to recover the victims from the tiny commuter plane.
In the meanwhile, a team of nine National Transportation Safety Board investigators arrived in Anchorage, Alaska, on Saturday to investigate the cause of the incident.
NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said the Cessna carrying nine passengers and one pilot was lost from radar contact about 3:30pm local time on Thursday over the Bering Sea as it headed from Unalakleet, Alaska, to an airfield in Nome, about 100 miles south of the Arctic Circle.
According to officials, the Coast Guard discovered the debris late Friday on an ice floe that was floating at a rate of almost five miles per day at sea.
“Victim healing is the first focus. At a news conference earlier on Saturday, Homendy stated, “After that, we will retrieve the wreckage.”
Officials had said they would use Black Hawk helicopters to try to lift the wreckage off the ice.
She also expressed her “deepest condolences” to the victims’ families and friends.
“Please know that we will work diligently to determine how this happened,” she said, adding, “It must be extremely heartbreaking for the families.”
On Friday, the Coast Guard put two divers in the water and they were able to see into the aircraft, but it was largely inaccessible due to the extent of the damage.
Two of the passengers, according to a news release from the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, were employed by the organization in utility operations and had come to Unalakleet to service a portion of the community’s water plant.
The staff members were “passionate about the work they did, cared deeply for the communities they served, and made a lasting impact on rural communities across our state,” according to Natasha Singh, the agency’s interim president and CEO.
Reuters was unable to quickly contact Singh or the ANTHC for further comment.
The tragedy occurs during a period when American air safety is under increased scrutiny. NTSB investigators are looking into two recent fatal crashes: a medical aircraft accident in Philadelphia that killed seven people, and a passenger flight and US Army Black Hawk helicopter collision in midair in Washington, DC, that killed 67 people.
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