19-03-2025
NTSB: Bering Air plane was overloaded prior to crash near Nome that killed 10
Mar. 19—The Bering Air flight that crashed near Nome last month, killing the pilot and all nine passengers, was more than 1,000 pounds too heavy for the icy weather it was flying into, according to a National Transportation Safety Board preliminary report released Wednesday.
The crash was the third fatal civilian aviation incident in the U.S. in less than a week and one of Alaska's deadliest in recent decades.
The Bering Air Cessna Caravan left Unalakleet the afternoon of Feb. 6 and went down just over 30 miles southeast of Nome.
Six of the passengers were returning from jobs in Unalakleet, including a crew working on the water plant and a teaching mentor. Three others and the pilot were residents of Unalakleet or Nome.
The next day, U.S. Coast Guard confirmed the deaths of all 10 people aboard Flight 445.
The NTSB report provides the first clues into what investigators think may have caused the plane to go down on the Norton Sound sea ice. The agency won't issue a probable cause until at least next year.
Freezing rain was reported in Nome at the time of the crash. A large weather front over Western Alaska created the potential for ice buildup as the plane neared the airport, according to the NTSB report.
The combination of occupants, baggage and cargo put the plane's takeoff weight at about 9,865 pounds — about 1,058 pounds over "the maximum takeoff gross weight for flight into known or forecast icing conditions," NTSB investigator in charge Timothy Sorensen wrote.
The Federal Aviation Administration requires operators to follow the weight limitations. The maximum gross takeoff weight generally reflects the heaviest weight at which a plane can safely land.
There was nothing loaded onto that Bering Air flight that would have made it extraordinarily heavy, said NTSB Alaska chief Clint Johnson.
The report described just under 800 pounds of baggage or cargo.
"It's the passengers, the pilot, the fuel on board ... in addition to cargo," Johnson said. "Tools, everything you could possibly imagine coming out of the Bush."
Along with the cargo compartment, the plane was outfitted with an additional pod that was certificated by the FAA, he said. The cargo pod allowed Bering Air to operate under a higher maximum weight during normal conditions but not when icing was possible.
Deicing delay
The plane's final signal came around 3:20 p.m. on Feb. 6.
Just after 3:10 p.m., the NTSB report said, a controller informed pilot Chad Antill that the runway in Nome needed deicing and would temporarily close for 10 to 15 minutes.
At 3:14 p.m., the controller "added if the pilot wanted to 'slow down a little bit' to prevent the flight from arriving before the runway reopened, that would be fine," Sorensen wrote.
Antill acknowledged the statement and the plane slowed and leveled off at 6,000 feet before descending to 4,000 feet a few minutes later, the report said. Then, about a minute before the plane disappeared, the autopilot was disengaged and the flight's speed and altitude dropped, it said.
The controller monitoring the flight issued a low-altitude alert at 3:20 p.m., Sorensen wrote. "The controller's efforts to contact the pilot were not successful, and no further communications were received."
Satellite tracking data picked up the plane's final signal at 200 feet, the report said.
A Bering Air representative did not immediately respond to a message left at the company's Nome offices on Wednesday.
Investigators to weigh weather, performance
The federal report released Wednesday said the plane crashed north of a large stationary weather front that stretched west to east, from the Bering Sea into Northwestern Canada.
Aviation weather advisories issued the day of the crash called for "occasional moderate icing" between 2,000 and 8,000 feet, the report said.
Weather observations at Nome included "trace icing" starting just before 3 p.m. the day of the crash, it said.
The plane was equipped with deicing technology and fluid, according to the report.
Investigators examining the wreckage noted minor ice accumulation on some leading-edge surfaces and significant accumulation at the base of the strobe light at the top of the plane's tail fin.
Authorities have said they did not pick up any emergency signals from an onboard transmitter and heard no distress calls from the pilot.
Investigators determined the plane's emergency locator transmitter became disconnected from the antenna on impact, rendering it inoperable, according to the new report.
Along with multiple factors including weather, officials say the crash investigation will include a review by a senior NTSB aerospace engineer of the plane's performance, including an evaluation of the airplane's center of gravity location.
[Shock, grief and support: Remembering the 10 Alaskans who died on Bering Air Flight 445]
Bering Air, in operation since 1979, serves 32 villages in Western Alaska from hubs in Nome, Kotzebue and Unalakleet.
People in multiple small villages served by the longtime Western Alaska air carrier welcomed planes with prayer circles as service resumed several days after the crash.
The Bering Air crash appears to be Alaska's deadliest since 2013, when 10 people died in Soldotna during takeoff of a Rediske Air Inc. charter carrying two families going bear viewing.
It was Bering Air's first fatal crash reported since 1987, when the pilot of a cargo flight died near Ambler, according to a federal database.
Killed in last month's crash were 34-year-old Nome resident Antill and passengers Rhone Baumgartner, 46, of Anchorage; Donnell Erickson, 58, of Nome; Andrew Gonzalez, 30, of Wasilla; Kameron Hartvigson, 41, of Anchorage; Ian Hofmann, 45, of Anchorage; Talaluk Katchatag, 34, of Unalakleet; JaDee Moncur, 52, of Eagle River; Carol Mooers, 48, of Unalakleet; and Liane Ryan, 52, of Wasilla.
