A commuter flight that crashed in Alaska, killing all 10 people on board, last month was too heavy for the icy weather it was flying into, a damning new report suggests.
The Bering Air Cessna Caravan was flying from the the city of Unalakleet on February 6, and crashed into the icy sea about 30 miles southeast of Nome – where freezing rain had been reported.
The large weather front over Western Alaska also created the potential for ice buildup as the plane neared the airport in Nome, the National Transportation Safety Board said in a newly-released preliminary report.
In such conditions, planes should carry just over 8,800 pounds to land safely.
But a combination of occupants, baggage and cargo put the Bering Air flight’s at about 9,865 pounds – half a ton over ‘the maximum takeoff gross weight for [a] flight into known or forecasting ice conditions,’ NTSB investigator in charge Timothy Sorensen wrote.
None of the cargo itself would have made the plane that heavy, as the report described just under 800 pounds of baggage or cargo, NTSB Alaska chief Clint Johnson told the Anchorage Daily News.
‘It’s the passengers, the pilot, the fuel on board… in addition to the cargo,’ he explained.
‘Tools, everything you could possibly imagine coming out of the bush.’
The NTSB report notes that the plane was equipped with an additional pod that allowed it to operate under a higher maximum weight during normal conditions – but not when icing was possible.
An aviation weather advisory on the day of the crash had called for ‘occasional moderate icing’ between 2,000 and 8,000 feet, the Anchorage Daily News reports.
Weather observations at Nome also included ‘trace icing’ starting just before 3pm as the National Weather Service reported that temperatures were in the single digits, with light snow, wind gusts of up to 35mph and low visibility.
The jet was outfitted with deicing technology and fluid to tackle these conditions, but still investigators at the crash site found 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.
They also found that the impact of the crash caused the plane’s emergency locator transmitter to become disconnected from the antenna, causing it to become inoperable and the plane to lose signal.
It had left Unalakleet at 2:37pm, and as it approached the airport in Nome shortly after 3.10pm, an air traffic controller informed pilot Chad Antill that the runway needed to be deiced and would temporarily close for 10 to 15 minutes, the report says.
By 3.14pm, 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 then acknowledged the controller’s advice, and the plane slowed as it leveled of at around 6,000 feet in the air before it descended to 4,000 feet.
The Bering Air plane was equipped with an additional pod that allowed it to operate under a higher maximum weight during normal conditions – but not when icing was possible. A Bering Air plane is pictured arriving in Ambler in 2022
About one minute before it disappeared, the NTSB report says, the autopilot was disengaged and the flight’s speed and altitude plummeted – prompting the air traffic controller monitoring the situation to issue a low-altitude alert at 3.20pm.
That was when the plane provided it’s last signal, with satellite tracking data picking it up at just 200 feet above the air.
‘The controller’s efforts to contact the pilot were not successful, and no further communications were received,’ the preliminary report reads.
It was found on an ice floe following an extensive search the next day, with all nine passengers and the pilot not surviving, making it one of the deadliest plane crashes in the state in 25 years.
Among the victims was the pilot, Chad Antill, 34.
The remaining victims included Liane Ryan, 52; Donnell Erickson, 58; Andrew Gonzalez, 30; Kameron Hartvigson, 41; Rhone Baumgartner, 46; and Jadee Moncur, 52.
Ian Hofmann, 45; Talaluk Katchatag, 34; and Carol Mooers, 48 were also on the fatal flight.
Baumgartner and Hartvigson had traveled to to service a heat recovery system vital to the community´s water plant and died, according to the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium.