Plane in trouble right after takeoff: survivor
Five of 25 aboard badly hurt in Saskatchewan crash
FOND DU LAC, Sask. — One of the survivors of a plane crash in northern Saskatchewan says he knew something was wrong about 10 seconds after takeoff.
“The plane was just moving up and down, side by side,” said Willie John Laurent, a band councillor with the Fond du Lac Dene Nation who was on the plane. “The last I remember is it touching the ground. That’s the last I know.”
Laurent, wife Helen and daughter Amanda were among the 22 passengers — including an infant — and three crew members aboard a West Wind Aviation turboprop that crashed Wednesday about 6:15 p.m. near the remote community of Fond du Lac in the boreal forest of northern Saskatchewan.
It was scheduled to travel about 80 kilometres east to Stony Rapids, and then on to Wollaston and Prince Albert.
No one was killed in the crash. At least five people were seriously injured and needed to be airlifted to hospital.
Darryl McDonald said his 70-year-old mother, Ernestine, suffered a broken jaw and facial injuries when the plane went down about a kilometre from the airstrip. His sister also suffered injuries to her leg.
Laurent, who was bruised on one side of his body, remembers hearing screams as the plane went down.
“People yelling, yelling, yelling,” he said. “Then you smell a lot of fuel, a lot of jet fuel. Good thing there was no spark.”
The cause of the crash is under investigation.
It took about four hours to rescue all the passengers and crew from the plane. Local RCMP officers, rangers and at least 50 residents in the 900-person community immediately went to the scene to help.
Chris Fountain, a civilian guard at the RCMP detachment, called to see if he was needed.
“I actually got Regina telecoms and they told me that the members are really busy, there’s been a plane crash. So I just hung up the phone and went for a ride.”
Fountain jumped on his snowmobile, driving about four minutes into the bush to find the plane and help with the rescue.
“You could smell fuel so, of course. We made sure everybody’s cellphone was shut off and nobody was smoking,” he said.
“We took the ones that were in shock and jumped on Ski-Doos behind people or in front of people, and we pulled them out. The rest were on stretcher boards and we sleighed them out up to the road.
“Then [came] the ambulance or whatever nursing station vehicles were there to haul the ones coming off on stretchers out.”
Other residents helped at the health clinic in the community.
“Everyone was involved,” said Sandra Adam, who spent her night going back and forth to the clinic with blankets and coffee. “It was really crazy.
“Everybody helped out. I don’t think there was one person who didn’t help.”
The twin-engine ATR-42 turboprop can accommodate 50 passengers, but most typically seats 42, along with two crew. Manufactured in France and Italy, the aircraft is designed for short-haul flights.
West Wind Aviation, formed in 1983, operates from bases in Saskatoon, La Ronge and Stony Rapids, as well as in northern Saskatchewan.
Fond du Lac Mounties were to remain at the crash scene until Transportation Safety Board investigators and an identification section arrived.