Washington —
A pilot of an overloaded commuter plane appears to have been distracted by icy conditions and didn’t pay attention to his airspeed, leading to a crash that killed all 10 people onboard, the National Transportation Safety Board concluded Thursday.
On February 6, 2025, a Textron Aviation Cessna 208B Caravan, operated as Bering Air flight 445, disappeared off the coast of western Alaska. The plane took off from the remote fishing village of Unalakleet, which is only accessible by air, for a roughly 150-mile flight to Nome. The aircraft’s wreckage was later found on a floating ice pack about 34 miles southeast of the city, according to the US Coast Guard.
The crash came a week after a regional jet and a military helicopter collided in Washington, DC, killing 67 people. Before that, 10 people had not died in a plane crash in the US since 2022.
The Bering Air flight’s takeoff was initially delayed four hours as the pilot waited for the weather to improve, but eventually the plane with the pilot and nine passengers took off.
