Cold weather is believed to have caused problems with a warning light on an aircraft in northern Saskatchewan yesterday.
A twin-engine turboprop traveling from Fond du Lac to the Cigar Lake mine was re-routed to the Stony Rapids airport.
Officials with West Wind Aviation say a warning light indicated there may have been a problem with the plane’s landing gear.
Company Vice President Dennis Barenieski says standard procedures were followed and emergency personnel from Black Lake were called to the airport.
“If it were to land without its landing gear fully extended it is typically a belly landing which aircraft pilots are trained to do as well and that is where they would come in but to ensure the safety of passengers and crew is maintained at the highest level we make sure there are emergency services and personnel available in the event they are needed,” he says.
Barenieski says the plane landed safely around 4 p.m. and it appears the indicator light had malfunctioned.
Transportation Safety Board Regional Manager Peter Hildebrand says he has been made aware of the situation.
Hildebrand says it is not unusual for this type of malfunction to happen with the extremely cold weather northern Saskatchewan has been experiencing recently.
“Sometimes the switches that turn the lights on and off are not going to be working as well as they should when it gets really cold,” he says. “That’s really what it was, so with that we are not going to conduct a full investigation of that.”
The plane was carrying five passengers and two crew members.
It was checked over in Stony Rapids.