N.W.T. plane crash: Families remember victims as investigation begins
CTV
The Transportation Safety Board has deployed four investigators to analyze the burnt wreckage of a British Aerospace Jetstream plane transporting workers to a diamond mine in the Northwest Territories.
The Transportation Safety Board has deployed four investigators to analyze the burnt wreckage of a British Aerospace Jetstream plane transporting workers to a diamond mine in the Northwest Territories.
In a preliminary report, the TSB has called the fatal plane crash that killed six people in Fort Smith on Tuesday, “an accident.” Its investigators will interview witnesses, collect evidence and take photos and videos of the site to determine what factors lead to the crash.
Shortly after take-off, the aircraft collided with terrain and caught fire. The lone survivor, a young man who works for the Diavik diamond mine was admitted to a Fort Smith, N.W.T. hospital with serious burns.
Four other Diavik mine employees and two crew members with Northwestern Air Lease have died. CTV News has confirmed the identities of three crash victims.
Life distorted into death within minutes. Within that same time frame, Beverly Chepelsky, wife and mother, became a widow.
On Tuesday morning, she dropped off her husband Joel Tetso at the airport. He was a heavy duty mechanic for Diavik. Every two weeks, Tetso would get on a flight to go to work helping excavate diamonds in a frozen subterranean lake on the outer edge of the Arctic Circle. The long shifts away from home would be balanced out by two following weeks off for Tetso to dote on his family.
“He was the love of our lives,” says Chepelsky in an interview with CTV National News. The couple had been together for two decades. “We share three beautiful children from ages nine to 15. He was an amazing dad.”
