The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) is investigating the crash of a West Wind Aviation ATR 42 regional turboprop shortly after takeoff from Fond-du-Lac, Saskatchewan.
The aircraft, an ATR 42-320 model, registration C-GWEA, had 22 passengers and three crew on board and was operating flight WEW282 to another location in the province, Stony Rapids, when it crashed at 18:15 local time on Dec. 13. The aircraft came down around 1km (.62 mile) from Fond-du-Lac.
According to the TSB, the aircraft “collided with terrain shortly after takeoff,” sustaining “substantial damage.” The TSB added that “A number of passengers and one crew member sustained serious injuries.”
West Wind Aviation said that medical facilities in both Fond-du-Lac and Stony Rapids had handled casualties, with five transported to other medical facilities with non-life-threatening injuries.
According to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, no explosion or fire resulted from the impact.
Pictures of the wooded crash site show the aircraft’s fuselage almost completely severed just forward of the wing, which was also extensively damaged.
West Wind Aviation operates three ATR 42s plus a fleet of DHC Twin Otters and Beech 1900C and 1900D commuter airliners, plus smaller turboprops. It flies primarily within Saskatchewan, but also to other Canadian destinations and occasionally into the US, VP-finance and CFO Rick Philipenko told ATW.
The Aviation Herald incident website added the TSB had reported that both the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder had been recovered and were being sent to the TSB laboratory in Ottawa for decoding; a TSB spokesman could not immediately confirm this Dec. 15.
Alan Dron alandron@adepteditorial.com
