Canadian authorities reported a tragic crash on Saturday involving a small plane that resulted in the loss of six lives. The crash occurred in the province of Alberta, west of Calgary, in the Kananaskis Village.
The ill-fated flight took off from Springbank Airport, situated just west of Calgary, on Friday night. The plane, a single-engine Piper PA-32, was carrying a total of six people—a pilot and five passengers. Their intended destination was Salmon Arm, British Columbia. Unfortunately, the journey that began with hopes and excitement turned into a tragedy.
Search Operation Launched After Plane Didn’t Reach Destination
As hours passed and the plane failed to arrive at its destination, concerns arose. The Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Trenton, Ontario, declared the aircraft overdue. Distressingly, the centre’s late-night communication with the police at 1 a.m. on Saturday signaled that something had gone terribly wrong.
In response to the emergency, a Royal Canadian Air Force Hercules plane was dispatched to locate the missing aircraft. The search efforts proved successful when the emergency locator transmitter of the crashed plane led searchers to Mount Bogart, approximately 60 kilometres (37 miles) west of Calgary.
Tragically, the search and rescue teams, comprising Hercules crew and Alberta Parks Mountain Rescue responders, confirmed the worst possible outcome—the plane crash had resulted in no survivors. In the aftermath of the crash, the Transportation Safety Board initiated an investigation to determine the cause of the accident.
On 13 december 2017, an Avions de Transport Régional ATR 42-320 aircraft (registration C-GWEA, serial number 240), operated by West Wind Aviation L.P. (West Wind), was scheduled for a series of instrument flight rules flights from Saskatoon through northern Saskatchewan as flight WEW282.
When the flight crew and dispatcher held a briefing for the day’s flights, they became aware of forecast icing along the route of flight. Although both the flight crew and the dispatcher were aware of the forecast ground icing, the decision was made to continue with the day’s planned route to several remote airports that had insufficient de-icing facilities.
The aircraft flew from Saskatoon/John G. Diefenbaker International (CYXE) to Prince Albert (Glass Field) Airport (CYPA) without difficulty, and, after a stop of about 1 hour, proceeded on toward Fond-du-Lac Airport (CZFD). On approach to Fond-du-Lac Airport, the aircraft encountered some in-flight icing, and the crew activated the aircraft’s anti-icing and de-icing systems.
Although the aircraft’s ice protection systems were activated, the aircraft’s de-icing boots were not designed to shed all of the ice that can accumulate, and the anti-icing systems did not prevent ice accumulation on unprotected surfaces. As a result, some residual ice began to accumulate on the aircraft.
The flight crew were aware of the ice; however, there were no handling anomalies noted during the approach. Consequently, they likely did not assess that the residual ice was severe enough to have a significant effect on aircraft performance. The crew continued the approach and landed at Fond-du-Lac Airport at 1724 Central Standard Time.
According to post-accident analysis of the data from the flight data recorder, the aircraft’s drag and lift performance was degraded by 28% and 10%, respectively, shortly before landing at Fond-du-Lac Airport. This indicated that the aircraft had significant residual ice adhering to its structure upon arrival. However, this data was not available to the flight crew at the time of landing.
The aircraft was on the ground at Fond-du-Lac Airport for approximately 48 minutes. The next flight was destined for Stony Rapids Airport (CYSF), Saskatchewan, with 3 crew members (2 pilots and 1 flight attendant) and 22 passengers on board.
Although there was no observable precipitation or fog while the aircraft was on the ground, weather conditions were conducive to ice or frost formation. This, combined with the residual mixed ice on the aircraft, which acted as nucleation sites that allowed the formation of ice crystals, resulted in the formation of additional ice or frost on the aircraft’s critical surfaces.
Once the passengers had boarded the aircraft, the First officer completed an external inspection of the aircraft. However, because the available inspection equipment was inadequate, the First officer’s ice inspection consisted only of walking around the aircraft and looking at the left wing from the top of the stairs at the left rear door, without the use of a flashlight on the dimly lit apron.
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