Mid-Air Collision Between CF-HTN and CF-IDS During Firefighting Operations

Incident Overview and Flight Paths On the day of the incident, the aircraft registered CF-HTN completed a water drop on a fire located at 60° 33' N and 113° 03' W. After the drop, CF-HTN flew to the vicinity of a helicopter that had crashed earlier that day, approximately 1.5 miles west of the fire. The aircraft circled the helicopter wreckage to the right and reported the crash on VHF radio to Fort Smith aeradio on frequency 122.2. CF-HTN continued to circle the wreckage to the right. On the final circuit, the circle was widened to the northwest, and the flight path changed to a near-direct path over the helicopter from the north. During this maneuver, CF-HTN collided with CF-IDS, a Canadian Vickers PBV-1A Canso operated by North Canada Air (Norcanair). CF-IDS was also engaged in water bombing the same fire. It approached the fire from a southerly direction, dropped its water load, and entered a climbing left turn. During this turn, CF-IDS collided with CF-HTN.