Canadian Air Force acrobatic patrol plane crashed Sunday, May 17, in British Columbia, leaving one dead and seriously injured in an operation to cheer up Canadians during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the Canadian military.
"With a heavy heart, we are announcing that a member of the CF Snowbirds team (Canadian Forces) died and another was injured, " tweeted the Canadian patrol, also known as "Snowbirds".
The injured crew member suffered serious injuries but his life is not in danger, the military said.
With a heavy heart, we announce that a member of the CF Snowbirds team has died and that another has suffered from … https://t.co/KZEnG3M0xN
Earlier in the afternoon, the Royal Canadian Air Force reported that a patrol aircraft had crashed near Kamloops, in the western province of British Columbia, about 450 kilometers east of Vancouver.
The plane crashed shortly after takeoff in the late morning from Kamloops Airport, along with another aircraft. He landed on the front facade of a house.
Photos published in the afternoon by the local weekly Kamloops This Week show debris from the burning device near the house, which partially ignited. A video, taken by a witness and disseminated in particular on the website of the Quebec newspaper The Press, shows the two planes at the time of takeoff. One of them quickly gained altitude before making a circle and crashing into an explosion, after at least one member of the crew had succeeded in ejecting in extremis before the crash according to images.
A tour called "Operation Inspiration"
A witness, Nolyn Macleod, said on public radio that she saw the plane pass three meters above its roof. "We saw the pilot eject at a height corresponding to two floors perhaps, and then the unmanned plane fell right between my house and that of my neighbor", he said.
The two planes were to fly over British Columbia on Sunday on a so-called tour "Operation Inspiration", launched earlier this month to pay tribute to Canadians' efforts to respond to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Canadian patrol, made up of nine planes leaving a trail of white smoke in their wake, had started their tour of Nova Scotia with the objective of flying over the main cities of the country at low altitude from east to west.
Last October, a Snowbirds jet plane had already crashed into an uninhabited area shortly before an air show in Atlanta (United States). The pilot managed to eject.
