Alaska crews race against weather to recover plane crash victims; 2 passengers identified
Rhone Baumgartner and Kameron Hartvigson boarded the flight to Nome after traveling to Unalakleet to work on a heat recovery system servicing the community's water plant, according to the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, The Associated Press reported.
The identities of the others killed in the crash have not yet been released.
According to a Facebook post by the Nome Volunteer Fire Department, officials were using a break in the weather Saturday "to bring Bering Air passengers and crew home today."
The U.S. Coast Guard on Friday found the wreckage of the plane on sea ice about 30 miles southeast of Nome. It will later be removed from the water by a Black Hawk helicopter.
Coast Guard officials confirmed three bodies were found inside the aircraft but did not release their identities. All the passengers were adults.
"The remaining 7 people are believed to be inside the aircraft but are currently inaccessible due to the condition of the plane," USCG Alaska wrote in a social media post. "Our heartfelt condolences are with those affected by this tragic incident."
The Coast Guard determined the severity of the wreckage was beyond the possibility of survival but announced an "item of interest" related to the search was recovered.
The Bering Air commuter flight, bound for Nome, disappeared about 12 miles offshore, according to the Coast Guard. The flight was regularly scheduled.
Data from FlightRadar shows the Cessna 208B Grand Caravan EX last reported just after 3:15 p.m. local time Thursday over Norton Sound.
The Coast Guard said data showed a "rapid loss in elevation and rapid loss in speed" for the aircraft at 3:18 p.m. Thursday. However, authorities have not yet pinpointed why that happened.
No messages or distress signals were relayed, the AP reported.
The Federal Aviation Administration is providing an investigator from the Aviation Safety Office of Accident and Prevention, according to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.
He added the Department of Transportation will offer its full support with other plane crash investigations in progress.
The Alaska crash was the third fatal U.S. plane collision in eight days.
A passenger plane and a Black Hawk helicopter crashed midair near Washington, D.C., Jan. 29, killing 67 people.
A medical plane carrying an ill child plummeted onto a Philadelphia street Jan. 31, killing all six on board and a bystander on the ground.
The Alaska Department of Public Safety did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
12 hours ago
- Yahoo
AI clip falsely shared as tsunami hitting Japan
An 8.8-magnitude earthquake that rocked Russia's Far East in late July triggered tsunami warnings in Japan and around the Pacific Ocean. But aerial footage of large waves supposedly hitting a Japanese island -- which racked up more than 39 million views on Facebook and TikTok -- is AI-generated. The video, which appears to be filmed from a plane and shows waves approaching a coastline, was shared on Facebook on July 30. "Tsunami in japan, prayer for japan," the overlaid text says with a hashtag #prayerforrussia. Millions of people were put on high alert in countries along the Pacific Ocean after the 8.8-magnitude earthquake off Russia's Kamchatka peninsula on July 30, 2025 (archived link). In Japan, where a massive quake and tsunami killed 15,000 people in 2011, almost two million people were ordered to higher ground, but the biggest wave was 1.3 metres (4.3 feet). Japan downgraded its tsunami alert to an advisory later on July 30, and waves of up to 0.7 metres were still being observed the day after. The same video of the purported waves was also shared by more than 170 Facebook pages with a misspelled caption the "first tunia (sic) to hit Hokkaido, Japan this afternoon", with many of the pages directing users to a website selling home items. The claim was also shared elsewhere on Facebook and TikTok, garnering a total of 39 million views combined. But the video is inauthentic. Using Google reverse image search, AFP found the clip had surfaced online on April 29, uploaded by a YouTube channel that states it shares AI-generated visuals in its bio (archived links here and here). "From 30,000 feet...I saw this," the video's caption said, including hashtags saying it was made with artificial intelligence. The channel also added an "altered or synthetic" label to the video, which, according to YouTube, discloses "altered or synthetically generated content that seems realistic" (archived link). AFP found visual anomalies throughout the clip. The white water unnaturally separates from the rest of the wave as it advances towards the shoreline. The plane from which the video was filmed also does not appear to be moving forward. The circulating video does not correspond to footage that Japanese broadcaster NHK released of tsunami waves that hit Japan's coastal areas on July 30 (archived link). NHK also reported waves between 50 to 80 centimetres (1.6 to 2.6 feet) were observed along the coast of Hokkaido. AFP has repeatedly fact-checked the deluge of AI-generated videos misrepresenting disasters, as well as images falsely linked to the earthquake in Russia.
Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Yahoo
Helicopter crash kills two people, shuts Mississippi River, Coast Guard says
By Tom Polansek CHICAGO (Reuters) -Two people died on Thursday after a helicopter they were on board crashed into a barge on the Mississippi River, shutting the waterway to traffic near Alton, Illinois, the U.S. Coast Guard said. Preliminary information indicated the MD 369 helicopter hit power lines before the crash, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. The Federal Aviation Administration said there were two people on board when the helicopter crashed and the NTSB would lead the investigation. An NTSB investigator was expected to arrive on site on Friday, the agency said. Power company Ameren Corp said a contractor and subcontractor were repairing and replacing tower lighting and marker balls on transmission lines. "We are saddened about today's tragic incident," Ameren said, adding that it would cooperate with investigators. No one was on board the barge, which caught fire after the crash, Coast Guard spokesperson Jonathan Lindberg said. Firefighters extinguished the blaze, he said. The river, a major shipping waterway for crops and other goods, shut from mile marker 199 to mile marker 201, Lindberg said. There was no estimate for when the river would reopen, he said. Alton is downriver from the Mississippi's confluence with the Illinois River, and the closure could delay barges carrying grain to the U.S. Gulf from Midwestern farms.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
‘No saving it': Fire destroys Oxbow Bridge, cutting off Arizona to California route
The Oxbow Bridge has been destroyed by fire, cutting off a key route that connects the rural Arizona community of Cibola in La Paz County to California. The bridge in western Arizona also served as a shortcut to Yuma before it collapsed into the Colorado River on Aug. 1. The route was now 'impassable," the Bureau of Land Management said in a social media post. The wooden structure had connected Levee Road to the west side of the Colorado River. It was destroyed by what officials called the 'Oxbow 2 Fire,' which burned about five acres near the Oxbow Recreation and Wildlife Area, according to the agency. Photos of the structure showed it engulfed in flames. It took less than two hours for the bridge to completely collapse, said Brad Robinson, a farmer in nearby Blythe, California, who witnessed the fire and called 911. 'You knew it was done. There was no saving it,' said Robinson, 48. The fire began in the brush nearby, Robinson said. Within 15 to 20 minutes, the flames spread to brush underneath the wooden bridge and set it ablaze, he added. 'Next thing you know, the whole entire bridge was burning,' Robinson said. 'You could just sit there and watch it keep jumping from span to span. It just kept running down the bridge until the point of where the whole bridge, every part of it that was wood, was completely engulfed.' The fire was under investigation, the Bureau of Land Management said. In the meantime, the Bureau of Reclamation used buoys to mark the submerged hazard in the water. 'Boaters are urged to avoid the area and exercise extreme caution due to floating debris and unmarked hazards downstream,' the agency said. Local nonprofit Friends of Cibola NWR also advised boaters to avoid the area in a Facebook post. Other agencies that responded to the fire included the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Imperial County Fire Department and local law enforcement. The Oxbow Bridge has burned down in the past, Robinson said. He offered a piece of advice for keeping wooden bridges intact. 'If they're going to have a wooden bridge, don't let the brush build up underneath it. If there had been no brush around that bridge, that bridge would have never burned,' Robinson said. Stephanie Murray covers national politics and the Trump administration for The Arizona Republic and Reach her via email at and on X, Bluesky, TikTok and Threads @stephanie_murr. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Route from Arizona to California now impassable after bridge fire Solve the daily Crossword
