Authorities are working to recover the wreckage of a plane crash in western Alaska that killed 10 people while investigators are trying to determine what caused the small commuter aircraft to go down in the icy Bering Sea.

The Coast Guard said three bodies had been found, with the seven others presumed dead inside the plane.

A Bering Air flight with nine passengers and its pilot went missing in Alaska after the plane suffered "some kind of event" and "rapidly lost altitude and speed" on Thursday