Families of Bering Air crash victims file wrongful death lawsuits against airline

U.S. Coast Guard rescue swimmers from Coast Guard Air Station Kodiak inspect the wreckage of a crashed plane near Nome, Alaska, Feb. 7, 2025. (U.S. Coast Guard photo courtesy of Air Station Kodiak)

By James Brooks

Alaska Beacon

The families of four of the 10 people who died in the February 2025 crash of a Bering Air flight near Nome have filed three separate wrongful death lawsuits against the airline, alleging its actions are to blame for the crash.

The suits were filed separately in Nome Superior Court on Feb. 5 and 6, the one-year anniversary of the crash. No attorney of record was listed for Bering Air on Tuesday. The cases have tentatively been assigned to Judge Romano DiBenedetto. 

“As the operator of the flight, Bering Air breached the duty of care it owed to the plaintiffs,” wrote attorney Robert Stone in one of the complaints filed last week. “Bering Air overloaded the aircraft beyond its gross weight and beyond the limits of weight for flight into known icing conditions, making the aircraft unairworthy and unsafe to fly.”

All three cases rely on a preliminary report published in March by the National Transportation Safety Board. 

That report concluded that Bering Air Flight 445 was overloaded when it flew into icing conditions on a scheduled flight between Unalakleet and Nome on Feb. 6, 2025.

During the flight, the plane’s airspeed dropped below 95 knots, the stated minimum needed to operate its in-flight deicing system, the report found.

Pilot Chad Antill died in the ensuing crash, as did passengers Kameron Hartvigson, Donnell Erickson, Rhone Baumgartner, Andrew Gonzalez, Ian Hoffman, Talaluk Katchatag, JaDee Moncur, Carol Mooers and Liane Ryan. 

It was the deadliest airline disaster in Alaska since a 2013 crash in Soldotna. 

The 2025 crash, which took place on sea ice offshore, was not located until the day after the accident, and the remains of all 10 people were not removed from the site until three days after the crash.

As of Tuesday, the NTSB had not completed its final report on the accident.

The three lawsuits include plaintiffs representing Katchatag, Erickson, Hartvigson and Moncur. 

In part because the crash took place offshore, each suit incorporates elements of maritime law.

No date has been set for an initial hearing in the three cases.

• James Brooks is a longtime Alaska reporter, having previously worked at the Anchorage Daily News, Juneau Empire, Kodiak Mirror and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. Alaska Beacon is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.