A plane that matches the description of the one that went missing flying over Alaska has been found with three bodies inside the aircraft, officials said Friday.
Crews had not been able to fully open the plane and were continuing to search, according to Cameron Snell, a spokesperson for the US Coast Guard, who noted: “Right now we just know that there’s three.”
The Cessna Caravan left Unalakleet around 2:37 p.m. Thursday and was headed for Nome, about 150 miles away, but lost contact with officials less than an hour later.
Officials on Friday said the plane experienced a “rapid loss” in elevation and speed just before vanishing.
Around 3:18 p.m. Thursday, the plane had “some kind of event which caused them to experience a rapid loss in elevation and a rapid loss in speed,” US Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Benjamin McIntyre-Coble said. “What that event is, I can’t speculate to.”
The Coast Guard is currently treating the efforts to locate the plane as a search and rescue operation, McIntyre-Coble said, noting he wasn’t aware of the plane sending out any distress signals before vanishing.
The single-engine plane had nine passengers and a pilot on board when it disappeared over Alaska’s Norton Sound, according to the state Department of Public Safety.
The plane’s disappearance is the third major US aviation fiasco in a matter of days after an American Airlines flight crashed into an Army helicopter near Washington, DC, killing 67 people and a medical transportation plane crashed in Philadelphia, killing six people on board and another person on the ground.
With Post wires
