What: Keystone Air Service Ltd.Piper PA-31-350 Navajo Chieftain en route from Winnipeg to Manitoba.
Where: North Spirit Lake reserve, Ontario Canada
When: Jan 10, 2012, 10:00 a.m.
Who: 5 aboard, 4 fatalities
Why: The Keystone Air Service two engines propellor driven aircraft went down half a mile from North Spirit Lake’s gravel runway. THe plane crashed on the lake and caught fire 500 metres from the airport. People from a nearby residence rushed to the plane and tried to put out the fire with snow until the snow became saturated with jet fuel. Then they attempted to cut through the ice to get water to douse the flames. There was no firefighting equipment and no rescue resources or emergency equipment, and the runway has no control tower.
Witnesses heard the plane making a “putt putt” noise as it circled.
The cause of the crash has not been pinpointed; the plane had no black box, but locals say there was a blinding white-out blizzard with no visibility when the plane crashed.
Three of the passengers aboard were employees of Aboriginal Strategies, Inc. The pilot was one of the four people were killed. One male survivor is injured. Martha Campbell, Ben Van Hoek, and Colette Eisinger are among the deceased.
The locator beacon went off at 10:30, alerting ATC and the NTSB that the plane went down. NAPS and the Ontario Provincial Police responded. ASI(Aboriginal Strategies, Inc.) is owned by Tataskweyak Cree Nation, of Split Lake. The small (400 member) community is devastated.
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