The U.S. Coast Guard in Alaska said Friday afternoon it had located the wreckage of the Nome-bound plane that went missing after takeoff with 10 people on board Thursday. 

In a post on X, the Coast Guard also reported that three deceased individuals were found inside the plane, which was located on sea ice about 34 miles southeast of Nome.

"The remaining 7 people are believed to be inside the aircraft but are currently inaccessible due to the condition of the plane," USCG Alaska posted. "Our heartfelt condolences are with those affected by this tragic incident."

Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Mike Salerno told the Anchorage Daily News it's clear there were no survivors of the crash. 

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The commuter flight, operated by Bering Air, was traveling from Unalakleet to Nome in western Alaska, when its position was lost about 12 miles offshore, according to the Coast Guard. 

Data from FlightRadar shows the Cessna 208B Grand Caravan EX last reporting at 3:16 p.m. local time Thursday over Norton Sound.

Earlier, officials said aerial searches carried out by C-130 Hercules planes from the National Guard and Air Force resulted in "no sightings."

In a news conference Friday, officials said an "item of interest" had been found related to the search. 

Later, a Coast Guard rescue crew arrived at the wreckage site and lowered two rescue swimmers to investigate, The Associated Press reported. 

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During the news conference, the Coast Guard said that data showed a "rapid loss in elevation and rapid loss in speed" for the aircraft at 3:18 p.m. Thursday. 

All 10 people aboard the turboprop plane — nine passengers and a pilot — were adults, and it was a regularly scheduled flight, Lt. Ben Endres of the Alaska State Troopers said Friday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

A cache pit dating back about 1,000 years was discovered in Alaska last year, military officials recently revealed — providing a glimpse into the food storage methods of the past.

Archaeologists from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson (JBER), Northern Land Use Research Alaska and area tribal councils uncovered the birchbark-lined cache pit along Upper Cook Inlet in June, according to a Dec. 6 news release from the Alaska military complex where the discovery was made.

Cache pits are like root cellars. They were used to preserve fish, meat and berries, archaeologist Elizabeth Ortiz said. 

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"The caches were dug into well-drained soils and lined with birchbark and layers of grasses to preserve food and are rarely discovered intact," Ortiz said, according to the news release.

Initial radiocarbon dating revealed that the food storage pit was used about 1,000 years ago.

The pit was found along a trail well-known to have been used by the region's indigenous Dene people. 

It measured about 3½ deep, researchers said. 

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Dene, or Athabascan, is a language group stretching from the Alaska interior through Canada and into the American Southwest, according to the release. 

Athabascans, including Dena'ina and Ahtna people, are Dene speakers.

"This is the oldest known site on the east side of Upper Cook Inlet and further substantiates Dena'ina and Ahtna oral traditions that JBER and the surrounding area have been used for a very long time," archaeologist and JBER cultural resource manager Margan Grover said.

Most of the site was demolished by the military in 1942, Grover said. 

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Yet the pit and its intact birchbark lining was one of the few undisturbed features left at the Dene site.

Samples of the intact bark lining were used to test the age and contents of the pit. 

"Additional radiocarbon and stable isotope tests could yield new and significant information about the history of Upper Cook Inlet," Ortiz said. 

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"We are also testing to determine what types of food were stored in the cache."

Preliminary findings indicate the cache was used to store moose or caribou meat. 

"People came to this area in the spring and would stay through the summer to catch and preserve salmon," according to the release.

Grover called the discovery "an opportunity for people to understand who the Dene of Knik Arm are and how their ancestors lived on the land that is now JBER and Anchorage."

EXCLUSIVE: Private citizens — right up to the governor himself — are primed to be part of a new Alaskan initiative aimed at promoting policies that have been effective in Juneau at a national level as a new administration signals a willingness to listen and adapt to new strategies.

Just as Florida's education policy under Gov. Jeb Bush served as a blueprint for national education reform, the nonprofit Future 49 aims to position Alaska as today's model, focusing primarily on national security and energy.

Its top funders are a group of Alaskans of all stripes as well as a few Washington, D.C.-based advocates. It is nonpartisan and simply pro-Alaskan, according to one of its proponents.

It also seeks to dispatch with what one source familiar with its founding called the "out of sight, out of mind" feeling of some in the Lower 48 when it comes to how far-flung Alaska can translate its own successes in the cold north to a federal government that could benefit from its advice.

One of Future 49's founders is a commercial airline pilot whose family has lived in Alaska for more than 125 years. He said he wanted to show Washington issues Alaska deals with every day.

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Bob Griffin's family has lived in Alaska since 1899, he said, remarking he is an example of grassroots support behind showcasing Alaska’s potential to be the driving force in key sectors for the rest of the country.

Griffin said while there has not been any direct contact yet with the new administration, Gov. Mike Dunleavy is an ally of Trump’s and, in turn, primed to have a role in the group.

"We’re focused on not only the Trump administration, but other decision makers, to just highlight and advertise that the successes we've had in Alaska in energy, natural resources and other policy priorities are a good fit and benefit to all Americans."

He noted the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge region spans the size of West Virginia, but the part of it federally budgeted for exploration in a recent fiscal year was only an area half the size of Ted Stevens International Airport in Anchorage, illustrating how Juneau must guide Washington.

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A source familiar with the founding of Future 49 told Fox News Digital how the group's launch comes at a key juncture as one advice-averse administration transitions into one that has signaled its openness to undertake recommendations from states and local groups.

"The resources our nation needs to be energy-dominant are in Alaska, not in unfriendly nations like Russia and Iran who despise what we stand for and commit egregious environmental offenses on a daily basis," the source said.

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While the group is primed to express a pro-development approach to energy, it will remain nonpartisan and offer Washington successful strategies to develop both green and traditional energy based on work done in Alaska.

Dunleavy has offered a similarly two-fold approach, saying in a recent interview that opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to responsible development may yield just as much economic growth for the nation as emerging green technology, such as a proposal to harness the second-strongest tides in the world churning in Cook Inlet outside Anchorage.

Those parallels show why Future 49's advent is coming at the right time, a source told Fox News Digital.

Future 49's plan to use Alaska's long-term goal to utilize its energy resources as a roadmap was a sentiment also voiced in another confirmation hearing Thursday. Interior nominee Doug Burgum highlighted the need for domestic "energy dominance" for both economic and security reasons.

With Russia having invaded Ukraine, Dunleavy said most sensitive national defense assets are housed in Alaska, so the state has a deep background in what is needed to deter malign actors.

"We're very close to the bear," he said.

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Lessons learned from managing a National Guard force so closely tied to top-level national security concerns is another avenue Future 49 will likely seek to aid Washington in.

The group plans to commission a survey of Lower 48 Americans on their view of the Last Frontier and how they perceive Alaska from thousands of miles away, said Alaska pollster Matt Larkin.

Recent news that China plans to ban the sale of critical minerals to the US has sent a massive chill down the spines of American manufacturers and investors, threatening to damage our economy to the tune of billions of dollars. This presents a choice for America. Will we take control of our own economic future and embrace the wealth of resources literally beneath our feet, or will we roll over and let hostile adversaries like China dictate the economic and national security trajectory of the 21st Century?

As explained in recent reports, China has announced an export ban on gallium, germanium and antimony. These minerals are essential to the manufacture of electric vehicles, renewable energy sources, computers, smartphones and defense technology like radar systems, to offer just a few examples. In other words, minerals like these are key to competing in the economy of the future; China has them, they won’t export them anymore and that leaves our economy at a disadvantage – unless we step up and seize the moment.

Right now, we’re living in the kind of transformative economic era not seen since the last industrial revolution. Over the past three decades, the world economy has rapidly digitized, which now means that minerals like those being held hostage by China are more critical to both our prosperity and our national security. And that is exactly why China would not want the rest of the world to have them.

TRUMP PLANS TO 'IMMEDIATELY' REVERSE BIDEN'S ‘RIDICULOUS’ BAN ON NEW OIL AND GAS DRILLING ALONG US COAST

The fact of the matter is that he who pays the piper gets to call the tune. That’s as true in politics and daily life as it is in the global economy. When the United States and our allies are dependent on bad actors and adversaries for the things we need to drive our economy, we are naturally going to be less prosperous, less secure and less free.  As Governor of the state of Alaska, I have a solution for America to deal with this problem.

The Chinese Communist Party is not our ally and it is time that we started acting like it. Our current status as trading partners has been an uneasy and unsustainable relationship of convenience for decades now and we can now fully see the effects of allowing that relationship to make us dependent on them for our economic well-being and the instruments of our daily lives.

Fortunately, the United States is more than equipped to meet this moment thanks to our northernmost state. Alaska is not only rich in energy, but also endowed with an enormous abundance of mineral resources across the state. All we need to do is simply take advantage of what we already have available. Alaska is home to 49 of 50 critical minerals like the ones China does not want us to have.

Unfortunately, our access to them as a country has been drastically hindered by bad policy and misguided politics. For nearly four years, the Biden-Harris administration’s "look, but don’t touch" approach to Alaska has been depriving the hard-working Americans I serve of employment and the American people as a whole of the materials we need to succeed economically.

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Some worry that accessing these mineral resources will come at the cost of Alaska’s wildlife and natural beauty, but I find these arguments absurd. Nobody cares more about preserving America’s final frontier than the men and women who live, hunt and fish here. We can do both successfully, and we have for centuries.

Thomas Jefferson once famously wrote that dependence "begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition." Given the fact that a simple export ban from the other side of the Pacific Ocean now threatens to harm our economy so severely, it is hard to argue with Mr. Jefferson. To compete in the 21st century, America needs critical minerals for consumer products and defense systems, and we need energy to power both. Our need for those is not going to diminish; if we want our children to inherit the prosperity and independence we value, then it’s time to stop looking abroad for the building blocks of a strong America and start looking north to Alaska. 

The Biden administration was sued by the state of Alaska over claims they violated a Trump-era law by narrowing the scope of a mandated oil and gas lease.

During President-elect Donald Trump's first term in 2017, he signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which required the government to allow for at least two oil and gas drilling lease sales in the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) by December 2024. 

With the deadline quickly approaching, the Biden administration announced in December plans to move forward with an oil and gas lease sale of 400,000 acres within the northwest portion of the program area. But the lease, which was the smallest amount required under the Trump-era law, contained some restrictions.

In a lawsuit filed on Monday, the state of Alaska sued the Biden administration on claims that they are violating the statutory mandate of Congress by limiting drilling in the region. 

TRUMP PLANS TO ‘IMMEDIATELY’ REVERSE BIDEN'S ‘RIDICULOUS’ BAN ON NEW OIL AND GAS DRILLING ALONG US COAST

"Interior’s continued and irrational opposition under the Biden administration to responsible energy development in the Arctic continues America on a path of energy dependence instead of utilizing the vast resources we have available," Alaska's Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy said in a statement.

In 1980, President Jimmy Carter set aside an area of ANWR, known as "Area 1002," for the potential future exploration and development of natural resources. 

The state of Alaska claims that by limiting drilling in the region, the Biden administration "negates Congress’ express call for oil and gas leasing and development on the Coastal Plain." 

BIDEN MOVING TO BAN OIL AND GAS LEASES FOR 20 YEARS IN NEVADA REGION, JUST WEEKS BEFORE TRUMP INAUGURATION

"Congress did not authorize a new direction for ANWR. President Biden’s Administration ignored the law and took this unlawful detour without even presenting their final decision to the public for comment," Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor said in a statement.

The Biden administration issued restrictions on the lease, such as surface use and occupancy, which the complaint claims could "make any development economically and practically impossible." 

The lawsuit was filed just days before the lease sale is expected to take place on Jan. 9.

The Department of Interior told Fox News Digital it would not be commenting on the lawsuit.