Nearly two years after the crash of a small, commercial passenger plane just short of the runway at Vancouver International Airport (YVR) that claimed the lives of two pilots and injured seven passengers, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada will release its investigation report Wednesday morning (July 31).
TSB officials will make their findings public during a media-only event at the BCIT Aerospace Technology Campus, not far from the crash site on Oct. 27, 2011 when a Beechcraft King Air 100 belonging to Northern Thunderbird Air Inc. returned to YVR to make a landing.
According to the TSBs interim report from February 2012, the aircraft experienced an oil leak and about 15 minutes after taking off diverted back to the airport.
On the approach to the runway at an altitude of about 300 feet, the plane suddenly banked left, pitched nose-down, and slammed into the ground along Russ Baker Way then caught fire.
Passersby, many of them motorists who avoided the crashing plane as it skidded across the busy roadway, helped evacuate some passengers, while fire and rescue personnel rescued the remaining passenger and the pilots.
The aircraft was destroyed and all of the passengers were seriously injured, stated the TSB. Both pilots, 44-year-old Luc Fortin and Matt Robic, 26, died of their injuries later in hospital.
Six of the surviving passengers are suing the charter airline, alleging its staff ignored a pool of leaking oil under the planes wing before taking off for Kelowna.
The lone passenger not suing the company, told the media immediately after the horrific crash that she owed her life to the heroic efforts of the two pilots and countless other people who saved her.
According to the TSB, the impact injuries sustained by passengers and crew were "survivable," but the post-impact fire "compromised that survivability."
And that has added to previous calls for Transport Canada to investigate post-crash fires.
The safety board suggested, in part, that Transport Canada and other aviation regulators look into technology that would deactivate the battery and electrical systems at impact to eliminate a potential ignition source for air-craft weighing less than 5,700 kilograms.
Other suggestions related to protective and insulating materials, requirements for fuel system crashworthiness, and locating fuel tanks away from aircraft occupants.
Keep checking online for an update after the report release.
