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A Cessna 208B Grand Caravan aircraft operated by Bering Air was reported missing near Nome on Thursday afternoon, according to officials. The aircraft, carrying ten people, was en route from Unalakleet to Nome near Alaska when it vanished from radar.
Search Efforts Underway
Jim West, chief of the Nome Volunteer Fire and Ambulance Department, confirmed that the plane had gone down. The flight took off from Unalakleet at 2:37 p.m., as per Bering Air’s Director of Operations, David Olson. Data from FlightRadar indicated that the last recorded transmission from the aircraft occurred at 3:16 p.m. over Norton Sound.
Jack Adams, the White Mountain fire chief, told Alaska’s News Source that the aircraft disappeared from radar somewhere along the coastal stretch between Nome and Topkok. Search and rescue teams are actively scouring a 30-mile radius in that area in hopes of locating the missing plane and its occupants.
The Mysterious Alaska Triangle
The incident adds to the long history of mysterious disappearances in the region known as the ‘Alaska Triangle.’ This area, stretching between Anchorage, Juneau, and Utqiaġvik, has been linked to more than 20,000 missing persons cases since the early 1970s.
One of the most infamous cases occurred in October 1972 when a plane carrying U.S. House Majority Leader Thomas Hale Boggs Sr. and Alaska Congressman Nick Begich vanished en route from Anchorage to Juneau. Also aboard were Begich’s aide, Russel Brown, and the pilot, Don Jonz. Despite an extensive search operation, no trace of the aircraft or its passengers was ever found.
Another case involved 25-year-old New Yorker Gary Frank Sotherden, who disappeared while hunting in the Alaskan wilderness in the mid-1970s. Decades later, in 1997, a human skull was discovered along the Porcupine River in northeastern Alaska. In 2022, DNA testing confirmed it belonged to Sotherden, who is believed to have been killed by a bear.
Theories Behind the Disappearances in Alaska Triangle
According to reports, an average of 2,250 people go missing in the Alaska Triangle annually—double the national average. Several theories attempt to explain these vanishings, ranging from unusual magnetic activity and extraterrestrial influence to the more practical explanation that Alaska’s vast wilderness presents natural dangers that make recovery efforts incredibly challenging.
Like the Bermuda Triangle, the Alaska Triangle remains an unsolved mystery, with speculation continuing over the true causes behind these perplexing disappearances.
