N.W.T. residents say charter flights like taking the bus
Global News
Northerners jump on small charter planes like people in the South would into taxis or buses, says the co-owner of Aunty's Korner Store in Fort Smith, N.W.T.
Northerners jump on small charter planes like people in the South would into taxis or buses, says the co-owner of Aunty’s Korner Store in Fort Smith, N.W.T., where residents have been gathering to talk about a deadly crash earlier this week.
“It’s a way of life to get from community to community, because in the region I’m from there are communities that don’t have roads so you have to fly in there with smaller planes,” Darlene Sibbeston told The Canadian Press.
On Tuesday morning, a charter plane had just taken off from Fort Smith, a town of roughly 2,200 on the Alberta boundary, and was en route to the Diavik Diamond Mine, some 300 kilometres northeast of Yellowknife, when it hit the ground and caught fire.
Four passengers and two crew members died. One mine worker survived and was airlifted to hospital in Yellowknife.
The Transportation Safety Board has released photos of the crash site showing the plane severely damaged, its fuselage tattered, lying in a heavily wooded area just west of town.
Sibbeston is originally from the village of Fort Simpson, some 700 kilometres northwest of Fort Smith, where air commuting is even more common than in her current town.
“You have winter roads but in the summer you have to fly.”
Tuesday’s crash brought back terrifying memories of a flight she took in November of 2021.