Nome, Alaska – A newly released trove of investigative documents from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) reveals Bering Air routinely flew flights exceeding maximum weight limits in the days leading up to the February 6, 2025, crash of a Cessna 208B Caravan near Nome that killed all ten people aboard. The documents, totaling over 3,400 pages and made public Wednesday, detail a pattern of flights operating above both the maximum gross takeoff weight and the weight limits specifically for icing conditions.
The crash, which occurred on Norton Sound sea ice approximately 30 miles southeast of Nome, claimed the lives of nine passengers and the pilot, Chad Antill. The passengers included residents of Western Alaska, Anchorage-area engineers working on a water plant project, and an educator from the Mat-Su region. The incident marked Alaska’s deadliest aviation accident in decades and was one of three fatal civilian aviation incidents in the U.S. Within a week.
A preliminary NTSB report released last year indicated the Caravan was approximately 736 pounds over the maximum gross weight and 991 pounds over the limit for flights in icing conditions at the time of takeoff. The newly released docket confirms this initial assessment and expands on the extent of the issue. According to a report by Starr Blum, chair of the NTSB operational factors group, an analysis of flight manifests from a 10-day period leading up to the crash showed seven out of 35 flight legs were overweight. “Over the seven day period sampled, six days had at least one overweight flight, or in other words 44% of the flights during that seven-day period consisted of at least one overweight flight leg,” Blum wrote.
The documents also highlight discrepancies in fuel weight calculations. The pilot reported 1,000 pounds of fuel onboard before the accident, but the onboard Garmin system later determined the actual fuel weight to be 1,464 pounds.
Antill had reportedly expressed concerns about the weight of the flights to Bering Air management. In an interview with NTSB investigators conducted in April 2025, Antill’s fiancée, Paige Giebel, stated that he regularly voiced concerns about being asked to carry excessive cargo at the expense of fuel. “They would want him to take more cargo than fuel, and he would rather have more fuel than cargo because he would always say, you can’t fly without fuel,” Giebel told investigators, according to a transcript of the interview.
Another Bering Air pilot flying in the area on the day of the crash warned Antill about icing conditions. According to a transcript of interviews with Bering employees, Antill radioed another pilot, advising, “once you gain over this way, just a heads up, it’s icy over here.” That pilot subsequently landed in Nome and reported encountering significant ice accumulation, “incredibly spiky accumulations aft of my protected surfaces and on the front nose… Around the air inlets,” and described the icing as the worst she had ever seen.
The NTSB emphasized that the released docket represents a compilation of investigative activities and does not contain any probable cause findings. “This is just a… Synopsis of all the investigative activities that have gone on for the last year,” said Clint Johnson, NTSB’s Alaska chief, on Wednesday. The agency expects to release its final factual report, along with any probable cause determinations, in late spring or early summer.
Bering Air, which serves 32 communities in Western Alaska, has already implemented changes to its operations in response to the crash. These changes, detailed in a general operations manual update filed with the docket, include requiring managerial approval for departures when dispatchers identify potentially dangerous weather conditions and establishing limits on total takeoff weight. The company is currently facing multiple wrongful death lawsuits, including one filed by the wife of a passenger who died in the crash, alleging reckless operation of an overloaded aircraft in hazardous icing conditions.
A representative at Bering Air’s Nome offices declined to comment when contacted Wednesday. The wreckage of Flight 445 was located on February 7, 2025, after the plane disappeared from radar while approaching Nome’s airport. The aircraft had slowed from 152 knots to 111 knots following a request from air traffic control to avoid arriving at the airport too early due to a temporary runway closure for deicing. Shortly thereafter, the plane’s altitude and speed rapidly declined, and contact was lost.
