In rural Alaska, small airplanes are one of the only forms of travel- especially in the midwinter. 80 percent of Alaskan communities rely on air transport for food, fuel, supplies, and people.
Thursday Evening, A Bering Air Caravan carrying 10 people suddenly disappeared amidst the fog and light snow. The plane was heading from Unalakleet (800pop.) to Nome (3500pop.) across Alaska’s Norton Sound south of the Arctic Circle. (See Picture below) 
The Cessna Caravan left Unalakleet at 2.37 pm up to full capacity, and officials lost contact with it less than an hour later (~12miles offshore), according to David Olson, director of operations for Bering Air.
Danielle Sem, a spokesperson for the Nome Volunteer Fire Department, said the initial effort was a ground-only search “because of the weather and icing.” At the time of the plane’s disappearance, the National Weather Service reported visibility of just one mile in Nome with light snow falling. “When something happens here in small communities, in the small region that we live in, it hits home for everybody,” Sem said. “Because if you don’t know them, somebody else knows them.” Volunteers are on the search outside of Nome on snowmobiles for signs of the missing plane. National Guard stated that the visibility is almost zero in these conditions of snow and fog in the arctic circle.
The most difficult part of this story- this mystery is the trouble of searching above one of the coldest seas in the world. The possibility of survival is low, but sometimes humans defy the odds.
This is a developing story.
Monday, February 10th
ALL 10 PASSENGERS DEAD
I am saddened to announce that all 10 of the flight have been found dead amidst the plane wreckage on top of unstable, moving sea ice in the Norton Sound.
The pilot of the plane was 34-year-old Chad Antill of Nome, while the passengers were identified by Alaska State Troopers as Liane Ryan, 52; Donnell Erickson, 58; Andrew Gonzalez, 30; Kameron Hartvigson, 41; Rhone Baumgartner, 46; Jadee Moncur, 52; Ian Hofmann, 45; Talaluk Katchatag, 34; and Carol Mooers, 48.
