What happened
A twin-engine turboprop aircraft was performing a scheduled return flight to its base in Thompson, Manitoba, following a medical evacuation mission from Coral Harbour, Northwest Territories. The flight was conducted under instrument flight rules at an altitude of 18,000 feet. After departing Churchill, the aircraft began its approach to Thompson Airport roughly one hour into the flight leg.
At approximately 23:59 CDT, the crew was still in communication with air traffic control. Shortly thereafter, at 00:01 CDT, the Hotel non-directional beacon (NDB) located 3.4 miles northeast of the airport ceased transmission. About ninety minutes later, an emergency locator transmitter signal was detected by the search and rescue satellite system to the northeast of the airfield. Personnel sent to investigate the beacon failure discovered the wreckage of the aircraft situated within the NDB transmitter compound. There were 0 survivors reported from the crash site.
Findings
- The aircraft was operating in the vicinity of the Hotel NDB transmitter compound at the time of the accident.
- The loss of signal from the NDB coincided with the timeframe of the aircraft's disappearance.