Plane vanishes over Alaska as desperate search launched - map shows last known location

An craft carrying 10 radical has vanished from radar implicit Alaska sparking a frantic search.

The Bering Air Caravan went missing connected Thursday day and rescuers searched into the nighttime for immoderate motion of the aircraft.

It was heading from Unalakleet to Nome with 9 passengers and a pilot, according to Alaska's Department of Public Safety.

A representation from craft tracker FlightRadar24 showed the formation disappeared implicit Norton Sound, an inlet of the Bering Sea connected the occidental seashore of the US state, southbound of the Seward Peninsula.

The craft was 12 miles (19km) disconnected enactment implicit Alaska's Norton Sound, according to the US Coast Guard, erstwhile it vanished.

The disappearance marks the 3rd large incidental successful US aviation successful 8 days.

A commercialized jetliner and an service chopper collided adjacent the nation's superior connected January 29, sidesplitting 67 people. A aesculapian proscription plane crashed successful Philadelphia connected January 31, sidesplitting the six radical connected committee and different idiosyncratic connected the ground.

Unalakleet is simply a assemblage of astir 690 radical successful occidental Alaska, astir 150 miles (240km) southeast of Nome and 395 miles (640kms) northwest of Anchorage.

The Cessna Caravan near Unalakleet astatine 2.37pm, and officials mislaid interaction with it little than an hr later, according to David Olson, manager of operations for Bering Air.

"Staff astatine Bering Air are moving hard to stitchery details, get exigency assistance, hunt and rescue going," Mr Olson said.

Bering Air serves 32 villages successful occidental Alaska from hubs successful Nome, Kotzebue and Unalakleet. Most destinations person twice-daily scheduled flights from Monday done to Saturday.

Planes are often the lone enactment for question of immoderate region successful agrarian Alaska, peculiarly successful winter.

The Nome Volunteer Fire Department said successful a connection connected societal media that crushed crews were searching crossed the coast, from Nome to Topkok.

"Due to upwind and visibility, we are constricted connected aerial hunt astatine the existent time," it said. People were told not to signifier their ain hunt parties due to the fact that the upwind was excessively dangerous.

A US Coast Guard airplane unit was expected to hunt the missing aircraft's past known position. The National Guard and troopers were besides helping with the search, according to the occurrence department.

It was minus 8.3C successful Unalakleet astir take-off, according to the National Weather Service. There was airy snowfall falling and fog.

The names of the radical onboard person not yet been released.

Nome, a Gold Rush town, is conscionable southbound of the Arctic Circle and is known arsenic the ending constituent of the 1,000-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.