A search for a missing plane carrying 10 people is under way in Alaska.
The Bering Air flight left Unalakleet at 2.37pm on Thursday, heading for Nome, but contact was lost less than an hour later, said the airline’s operations director David Olson.
Officials are trying to work out its last known position but the US Coast Guard said the Cessna Caravan aircraft was 12 miles offshore as it flew across Norton Sound.
Unalakleet is a community of about 690 people in western Alaska, about 150 miles southeast of Nome and 395 miles northwest of the capital Anchorage.
In a post on Facebook, Nome’s Volunteer Fire Department said: “We are currently doing an active ground search from Nome and from White Mountain.”
It added: “We ask the public to please think of those who may be missing at this time, but due to weather and safety concerns please do not form individual search parties.”
Being Air serves 32 villages in western Alaska and air travel is often the only option of travelling long distances in rural parts of the state, especially in winter.
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