Arctic Charter Plane Crashes in Yellow Knife

What: Arctic Sunwest Charters De Havilland Canada DHC-6-300 Twin Otter en route from Thor Lake to Great Slave Lake
Where: Old Town in Yellowknife
When: Sept 22, 2011, 1:15 pm
Who: 9 aboard, 2 fatalities
Why: While en route from Avalon Rare Metals’ Thor Lake mine site, the Arctic Sunwest Charters float plane hit powerlines, a car and the Aurora Geosciences building before it crashed in Yellowknife in a small space between a building and a condo. Ironically, the plane ended up across the street from the Arctic Sunwest office, and just shy of Pilot’s Monument, a rock memorial to bush pilots. Emergency services performed cpr and worked on both pilots but they died at the scene. Seven passengers were retrieved from the plane which was crashed into a building, and were hospitalized. One passenger was airlifted to Edmonton.

Some witnesses say the plane appeared to lose power. The crash was within meters of the Arctic Sunwest Charters dock on Slave Lake.

The pilots lost in the crash were Trevor Jonasson, 36, and co-pilot 26 year old Nicole Stacey. Stacey was from Yellow Knife, a master corporal reserve soldier with the Canadian Forces’ Yellowknife Company. Survivors, some of whom are American, included three passengers who were Avalon Rare Metals executives, and three company guests on tour, and a photographer shooting for Up Here magazine. The photographer suffered a broken leg and head trauma. The crash occurred in shouting distance of two survivers of the Nunavut crash of flight 6560 near Resolute Bay in August, and the plane lodged between two buildings, and by the Dancing Moose Cafe and the Geosciences Building .

No one on the street was injured.

The US NTSB is assisting the Canadian investigation, and released the following:

The NTSB dispatched a team of investigators to assist the government of Canada in its investigation of Saturday’s crash of First Air flight 6560, a Boeing 737-200 combi airplane.

On August 20, 2011 at 12:30 p.m. CDT, the airplane, en route from Yellowknife Airport to Resolute Bay Airport, crashed on approach, East of Resolute Bay, Nunavut, Canada. There are reportedly twelve fatalities and three survivors.

The NTSB has designated air safety investigator Joe Sedor as the traveling U.S. Accredited Representative. Accompanying Mr. Sedor will be NTSB Operational Factors and Airworthiness investigators and representatives from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Pratt & Whitney and Boeing.

The Canadian investigation is in its Field Phase.

The investigation is being conducted by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, which will release all information. The TSB phone number is: (819) 994-8053 and email address is: communications@bst-tsb.gc.ca