Alaska aircraft crash updates: Bodies of all 10 victims now recovered as crews raced towards incoming storm

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.

People are mourning the loss of Bering Air passengers Rhone Baumgartner and Kameron Hartvigson, the first two victims of the 10-person crash who have been named.

“We lost two coworkers today,” Jackie Qataliña Schaeffer, who worked with the men at the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, wrote on Facebook. “Families lost family members. My heart grieves for them all..”

“This breaks my heart,” Ashlee McSwain, Hartvigson’s niece, wrote on Facebook.

“I love you, Uncle Rhone,” Rhone Baumgartner’s niece Riley wrote on Facebook.

Rescue crews are hard at work recovering the bodies of 10 people who were killed when a Bering Air jet crashed in rural Alaska during a storm this week.

“Efforts continue this morning in our weather window to bring Bering Air passengers and crew home today,” the Nome Volunteer Fire Department wrote in an updated on Saturday on Facebook.

Snow, gales, and strong winds are expected later today.

The National Weather Service is warning of hazardous weather that could last through Sunday in the area near where the Bering Air flight crashed, including snow, ice, and wind gusts as high as 45 mph.

“Travel could be very difficult,” the agency wrote in a forecast. “Areas of blowing snow could significantly reduce visibility.”

Gales warnings are in going to be in effect on Norton Sound beginning later tonight.

Details have been scant this morning about the progress on the recovery mission for a Bering Air flight that crashed on Thursday, killing 10.

Local officials most recently updated the public yesterday.

Watch their full comments here.

Authorities haven’t named all of those lost in the Bering Air crash on Thursday, but residents of the small towns around Alaska’s Norton Sound are bracing for the news.

“The whole Norton Sound is going to be affected by this,” Nick Hanson, a former American Ninja Warrior contestant from Unalakleet, the departure point of the flight, told Alaska’s News Source. “Whether they’re family or not, we’re all connected.

“We’re all just one big village.”