The Cessna 206 airplane involved in Thursday's fatal accident that claimed the lives of three tourists was landing when it crashed near Nahanni National Park Reserve, says Ted Grant, owner of the flightseeing aircraft company Simpson Air.
Five people were on board the plane when it went down at Little Doctor Lake just after 6:30 p.m. Three tourists - two people from Saskatchewan and another from Alberta - were killed in the crash. A female pilot and a female passenger survived. The two women were uninjured in the crash.
"(The passengers were on) a day tour of the Nahanni National Park. They'd already been to Virginia Falls and spent a couple hours touring at the falls and then they were on their way back here to (Fort) Simpson," Grant told News/North Monday.
"Normally we do a stop there at Little Doctor Lake for 20 minutes or half an hour and that's where the airplane was landing when the incident happened," he said.
Asked how two passengers could have walked away from the fatal crash unharmed, Grant said that's "just the way it happened," adding he won't know exactly what transpired until an investigation has been completed.
Edmonton-based investigators from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) were due to arrive at the accident site to probe the crash over the weekend, but Grant said members of the TSB haven't yet arrived.
Grant said have obtained a statement from the pilot, but that Simpson Air doesn't have access to the statement and hasn't yet spoken with the pilot.
"We're waiting for TSB to do their investigation and to get statement from the pilot as well and also from the survivor," said Grant.
Grant said the community is reeling from the deadly crash.
"Everybody is saddened by this, especially for the families of the victims who were on a flightseeing tour, certainly didnSA国际影视传媒檛 want anything like this to happen.
"The whole community here is pretty saddened by it and of course all of my staff," said Grant.
The names of the victims have not yet been released.
Thursday's incident was the second plane crash in the Dehcho in a matter of days. In a separate incident, three passengers and a pilot sustained minor injuries after another Cessna 206, owned by South Nahanni Airways, crashed in Nahanni Butte last Wednesday.
Asked whether or not potential tourists should be concerned or alarmed by the pair of crashes, Grant said "these things do happen."
"You try to prevent them. Sometimes it can be mechanical, sometimes it can be human error. You just try to prevent everything but those things just do happen," he said.
News/North is awaiting updates from and the NWT Coroner's Office as they continue to probe the fatal crash.
More to come.
