One dead in mid-air plane crash in Ottawa
Two small planes collided in mid-air in west-end Ottawa Sunday morning. Authorities have confirmed that one person has died.
According to CTV News, the smaller of the planes crashed into a field about 25 kilometres from downtown Ottawa near Carp Airport, while a second, larger plane landed safely at the Ottawa Airport, according to spokeswoman Krista Kealey of the Ottawa International Airport Authority.
“On November 4th, 2018, at 10:13, the Ottawa Paramedic Service with Ottawa Fire and Ottawa Police responded to two locations in Ottawa after two planes were damaged in an incident,” Ottawa Paramedic Service confirmed in a release Sunday.
“We first responded to Ottawa’s west end near McGee Side Road to assess the occupant of a small aircraft. The occupant of the aircraft was pronounced dead at the scene by the paramedics due to critical injuries.”
“We also deployed resources to the Ottawa International Airport after another small plane declared an emergency. While on route to that location, we were cancelled by the Ottawa Airport as no injuries were reported,” the release added.
A plane told the Ottawa airport it had been struck at the Carp airport, saying, “Somebody ran into the bottom of me, I didn’t see them.”
“Roger, are you declaring an emergency at this time?” the terminal responds.
“Not at this time, I’ve got a 1,000 pounds of fuel, two souls on board,” the plane says. Following that, it landed safely at the airport. It was reportedly occupied by a father and son.
It’s not clear what caused the collision. The Carp Airport and the Transportation Safety Board of Canada are investigating.
According to CTV, witnesses said the 82-year-old man who was in the smaller plane that crashed was a recreational pilot who rarely flew far from the Carp airport.
Mid-air collisions are rare and the fact that one plane was able to land safely with no injuries seems remarkable, said aviation consultant Mike Doiron, Atlantic representative for the Canadian Council for Aviation and Aerospace.
With so few details released, it’s hard to know exactly what occurred. But with small aircraft, “it’s really a world of see and be seen,” Doiron said.
At the airport itself, there’s a circuit or standard path for co-ordinating traffic. Pilots are supposed to transmit information about their location, “what they are doing, what their intentions are,” Doiron said. “All those rules are put in place to ensure that airplanes don’t run into each other.”