The Transportation Safety Board of Canada is set to release its report on the plane crash that killed former Alberta premier Jim Prentice and three other people.
The TSB plans to hold a news conference in Calgary today, where it will announce the findings of its investigation into the October 2016 crash.
- CBC News will livestream the news conference online starting at 10 a.m. MT / noon ET
Prentice was killed, along with his friends Dr. Ken Gellatly, businessman Sheldon Reid, and pilot Jim Kruk, when the Citation 500 aircraft they were travelling in crashed shortly after takeoff from Kelowna, B.C.
They were en route to the Springbank Airport near Calgary.
The aircraft disappeared from radar at 9:40 p.m. PT on Oct. 13, 2016, about 11 kilometres north of the Kelowna Airport.
There were no emergency or distress calls made, according to the TSB's initial investigation.
The plane "was destroyed from high deceleration forces after a vertical descent," Beverley Harvey, the TSB's investigator-in-charge, said at the time.
Investigators planned to review any electronic components that could give them clues as to the cause of the crash.
Prentice, 60, was also a former federal cabinet minister.
He became premier of Alberta in September 2014 after winning the leadership of the province's governing Progressive Conservative party. He quit politics in May 2015 after the NDP swept the PCs from power.
Plane had no data or voice recorders
The plane, which was built in 1974, was not equipped with a cockpit voice recorder or a flight data recorder. Neither is a requirement for that type of aircraft.
Days after the crash, board chairwoman Kathy Fox made a renewed call for the devices to be required on small planes.
"This latest accident is another reminder of how important these recorders are," she said in a statement at the time. "If we are to get to the underlying causes of these tragic accidents, Transport Canada and the aviation industry need to take immediate action to address this outstanding safety issue."
Greg McConnell, national chairman of the Canadian Federal Pilots Association, said one change he would like to see is regular Transport Canada inspections for small aircraft such as the business jet Prentice died in.
He said it's possible the TSB may not be able to pinpoint a single cause for why the plane went down.
"Often with accidents it's never one thing, but it's a culmination of a bunch of little things," McConnell said.
"We won't know until we see the report, I guess."