Accident | |
---|---|
Date | 13 April 2015 |
Summary | In-flight breakup |
Site |
North Shore Mountains,
British Columbia, Canada 49°24′32″N 123°05′35″W / 49.4090°N 123.0930°W |
Aircraft | |
Aircraft type | Swearingen SA226-TC Metro II |
Operator | Carson Air |
IATA flight No. | CA66 |
Call sign | ECLIPSE 66 |
Registration | C-GSKC |
Flight origin | Vancouver International Airport, Vancouver, Canada |
Destination | Prince George Airport, Prince George, British Columbia, Canada |
Occupants | 2 |
Passengers | 0 |
Crew | 2 |
Fatalities | 2 |
Survivors | 0 |
Carson Air Flight 66 was a Swearingen Metro II turboprop aircraft on a domestic cargo flight from Vancouver to Prince George, both in British Columbia, Canada. On 13 April 2015, the aircraft crashed into a mountain en route to Prince George Airport, killing both crew members. [1]
The flight had taken off from Vancouver International Airport at approximately 7:02 PDT. The aircraft subsequently descended from 2,400 meters to 900 meters in less than a minute. Air traffic controllers lost radar contact with the aircraft as it was en route to Prince George at roughly 7:08. [2] [3]
The aircraft, a twin-turboprop Swearingen SA226-TC Metro II, serial number TC-325, registered C-GSKC, was manufactured in 1977. Carson Air was its only operator. The aircraft was not equipped with a cockpit voice recorder or a flight data recorder. [2]
The crew consisted of only the cockpit crew, 34-year-old pilot Robert Brandt and 32-year-old co-pilot Kevin Wang. [4] [3]
The aircraft crashed into a hillside area near Crown Mountain, a part of the North Shore Mountains. [2] [5] Two helicopters and two aircraft from North Shore Rescue participated in the search for the wreckage of the aircraft, which was slowed by poor weather conditions. [6] It was later discovered that the emergency locating transmitter was activated, but did not send out a signal. [7]
The accident was investigated by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB), which determined the cause of the accident to be an in-flight breakup caused by a rapid descent. However, no definite reason was found as to why the descent was initiated. [7] An autopsy performed on the two pilots by the British Columbia Coroner Service revealed that pilot Brandt had a blood alcohol level of 0.24 percent, three times the legal limit for a driver. [8] [9] [10]