Photo of the crashed airplane. Courtesy Raymond Sanger.
*UPDATE – 10:30 p.m. — Fond du Lac RCMP can now confirm that all 22 passengers and 3 crew members aboard the West Wind Aviation flight out of Fond du Lac have been accounted for and removed from the scene of the crash with no fatalities reported. There was no explosion or fire. A number of people have suffered injuries; some serious enough to require air ambulance services which are currently en route.
Multiple injuries, but no deaths, are being reported from the site of a plane crash in northern Saskatchewan.
RCMP say a fixed-wing plane carrying “approximately 22 passengers” and three crew members crashed shortly after takeoff from the Fond du Lac airport at 6:15 p.m. Wednesday.
A spokesperson from West Wind Aviation confirmed it was one of the company’s planes that crashed, a 44-seat ATR 42.
Mounties found the downed aircraft less than a kilometre from the airstrip.
Shortly after 8 p.m. Wednesday evening, RCMP were reporting multiple injuries — but said there did not appear to be any fatalities.
At last word, emergency responders were focused on the rescue effort, and Mounties from Stony Rapids were assisting.
Additional emergency and rescue resources were on the way to the scene from Royal Canadian Air Force and Search and Rescue.
Transport Canada has been advised and will be taking over the investigation into the cause of the crash.
Meantime, Al Barrett, the acting regional manager of the Transportation Safety Board office in Winnipeg, spoke to MBC Thursday morning.
He says investigators are expected at the crash site later today.
“We have two investigators on the way, they should be arriving at the latest around four o’clock this afternoon, but we have an option where they might be there by noon,” he said.
Barrett says it’s not known how long it will take to complete the investigation at the crash site and it’s not known if weather was a factor.