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IKALUKTUTIAK/CAMBRIDGE BAY - The airplane carrying Julian Tologanak-Labrie was not pressurized when he opened the door and jumped out on April 15, according to Paul Laserich, co-owner of Adlair Aviation.

"The door can be opened under that pressure if they hit the right switches that's all I can tell you," Laserich said on April 22.

A search and rescue team at the Cambridge Bay airport co-ordinates a search for Julian Tologanak-Labrie on April 18. - Kassina Ryder/NNSL photo

"And the airplane wasn't pressurized when he opened the door."

Laserich wouldn't comment about Tologanak-Labrie's behaviour on the flight and said it would not be possible to speak with the pilots of the aircraft at this time.

Under normal circumstances, it would not be possible to open the door of a King Air 200 aircraft flying at 23,000 feet, Transport Canada spokespeople said.

"Normally, pressurization inside the aircraft would prevent an individual from opening the doors at 23,000 feet but right now we have very little information about the specifics surrounding the incident," said Patrick Charette, a spokesperson from Transport Canada. "I can confirm that normally, pressurization would prevent somebody from opening the door."

Tologanak-Labrie was brought to the Stanton Territorial Hospital from the Nova Court hotel on the night of April 14 by Yellowknife RCMP after they received a call about a disturbance, according to Sgt. Wayne Norris. After being released from the hospital, Tologanak-Labrie boarded an Adlair Air flight to Cambridge Bay the next day.

Ground searches were ongoing southwest of Cambridge Bay of April 23, but searchers still had seen no sign of Tologanak-Labrie, according to Staff Sgt. Charles Gauthier. He said while the RCMP are still investigating the incident, it is not being treated as a criminal investigation.

"There's no pilot error and there's no mechanical error involved here and there's really nothing criminal that we can see, but we're not done," Gauthier said. "I've got two (RCMP) members out there with the search and rescue people and a whole bunch of community volunteers out there and some of the family doing grid searches and stuff in the potential area of where he landed."

John Cottreau, a spokesperson for the Transportation Safety Board of Transport Canada, said the incident was reported to the board, but it did not warrant a full investigation by the federal body because it was not considered accidental.

"Once we determined that this was not an accident, we went no further," Cottreau said. "It was reported to us because it was an occurrence aboard a plane in flight. We did gather data about the occurrence and with that data it became apparent to us, it became evident to us that this was not an accident."

Maryse Durette, another spokesperson from Transport Canada said the last regular inspection of Adlair Aviation, which included an inspection of the aircrafts' and pilots' licences, was conducted in July 2008, and no safety issues were found.

On Sunday, Const. Dan Martin of the Cambridge Bay detachment comfirmed the RCMP search was called off after Thursday, April 23.