A Bering Air plane, similar to one that went missing on Thursday afternoon, prepares to land at an airport in Ambler, Alaska. (AP: Emily Mesner/Anchorage Daily News)
In short:
Ten people on board a Bering Air flight in Alaska have died after the plane experienced a sudden drop of altitude and crashed into Norton Sound.
US Coast Guard officials found the plane's wreckage on sea ice roughly a day after it went missing.
What's next?
Authorities are yet to determine what caused the aircraft to experience the drop in altitude and speed, which led to it crashing.
A small commuter plane that crashed in western Alaska on its way to Nome has been found on sea ice, with all 10 people on board confirmed dead, local authorities say.
The Bering Air plane was travelling from Unalakleet on Thursday afternoon, local time, with nine passengers and a pilot, according to Alaska's Department of Public Safety.
Officials lost contact with it less than an hour after take off at 2:30pm.
On Friday, US Coast Guard officials said rescuers were searching the aircraft's last known location by helicopter when they spotted the wreckage floating on ice about 19 kilometres offshore from Nome, in Norton Sound (an inlet of the Bering Sea).
Radar forensic data provided by the US Civil Air Patrol indicated that about 3:18pm on Thursday, the plane had "some kind of event which caused them to experience a rapid loss in elevation and a rapid loss in speed", according to Coast Guard Lieutenant Commander Benjamin McIntyre-Coble.
Authorities inspect the wreckage of the Cessna 208B Grand Caravan aircraft found on sea ice about 19km from the Alaskan coast. (US Coast Guard/Handout via Reuters)
The lieutenant commander said it was unclear what "that event" may have been and that no distress signals had been sent from the aircraft.
Planes carry an emergency locating transmitter. If exposed to seawater, the device sends a signal to a satellite, which then relays that message back to the coastguard to indicate an aircraft may be in distress.
The plane, a Cessna 208B Grand Caravan, was operating at its maximum passenger capacity of 10.
All people on board were adults, and the flight was a regularly scheduled commuter trip, according to Lieutenant Ben Endres of the Alaska State Troopers.
Bering Air serves 32 villages in western Alaska from hubs in Nome, Kotzebue and Unalakleet through twice-daily scheduled flights Monday through Saturday.
Most Alaska communities are not connected to the state's main road system, and airplanes are often the only option for travel of any distance in rural areas, particularly in winter.
Ice is visible in the Bering Sea as seen from a small plane near the western Alaska coast. (AP: Mark Thiessen, File)
The region is prone to sudden snow squalls and high winds in the winter, and residents were told not to form their own search parties because the weather was too dangerous.
Local, state and federal agencies assisted in the search effort, flying over stretches of ice-dotted waters and scouring miles of frozen tundra.
Third US aviation disaster in days
Unalakleet is a community of about 690 people roughly 240km south-east of Nome and about 640km north-west of Anchorage. The village is on the Iditarod trail, route of the world's most famous sled dog race, during which mushers and their teams must cross the frozen Norton Sound.
Washington DC air crash
Photo shows A boat in the river with the words search and rescue written on it.
Nome, a Gold Rush town, is just south of the Arctic Circle and is known as the ending point of the 1,610km race.
The city said prayer vigils would be held on Friday for those on board the plane, friends and family and those involved in search efforts.
Alaska's US senators, Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, issued statements saying their thoughts and prayers were with the passengers, their families, rescuers and the Nome community.
The plane's disappearance marks the third major US aviation mishap in eight days.
A commercial jetliner and an army helicopter collided near the nation's capital of Washington DC on January 29, killing 67 people.
On January 31, a medical transportation plane crashed in Philadelphia, killing the six people on board and another person on the ground.
AP