DEH CHO
The owner of Wolverine Air is praising the efforts of two pilots who were forced to land 17.5 nautical miles south of Fort Simpson after both engines in the aircraft they were flying failed on Nov. 23.

Laverna Martel stands with Wolverine Air's Piper Navajo aircraft which recently experienced a rough landing that left it with minimal damage following engine failure, said Jacques Harvey, owner of Wolverine Air. He is praising the two pilots whose adherence to protocol he credits to rigorous training. - NNSL file photo

Jacques Harvey said it was a credit to the rigorous training of the pilots that neither were injured and the aircraft sustained only minimal damage.

"(The pilots knew), when power to one engine failed and the other one started to hesitate, they would be facing probably a double engine failure. So we have a procedure of how to (land) the aircraft, and they followed that to the letter," Harvey said.

"They did a fine job, they landed the aircraft under control. We were talking to them as it happened, so we had their pinpointed location and I was able to jump in a helicopter and bring them back to (Fort Simpson) within half an hour."

Harvey said he didn't want to speculate on the cause of the forced landing. However, he said Wolverine Air suspects the engine failure was due to fuel starvation.

"(That) means we suspect there was still fuel in the aircraft but we don't know if it was frozen or if it was a mechanical (issue)," he said.

"We have no answer exactly on what caused the fuel starvation."

The plane, a six-passenger twin-engine Piper Navajo, had no passengers on board aside from the pilots and was returning to Fort Simpson from Nahanni Butte. Although weather reports say the skies were clear, temperatures dipped below -25 C that morning.

Herb Norwegian, Grand Chief of Dehcho First Nations, flew out on the plane to Nahanni Butte earlier in the morning accompanied by Ministerial Special Representative Anne Marie Doyle. Doyle is visiting all communities in the Deh Cho in order to relay their concerns with Dehcho Process negotiations to the federal and territorial governments.

Speaking to the Deh Cho Drum from Nahanni Butte immediately after hearing about the forced landing, Norwegian said he and his fellow passengers were safe but shaken by the news of the crash.

"We came in with a twin engine plane from Wolverine Air today at 11 a.m., landed here, and then the plane went back to Simpson and crashed," Norwegian said.

"I don't know what happened." According to a report from Transport Canada, the plane declared a fuel emergency, which was followed by both engines failing. During the landing, the right wing broke off about halfway up the wing.

Jon Lee, the western regional manager for the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, said the board is working with Wolverine Air to collect information for its database but won't be producing a full public report on the incident.

Information collected could be used in the future if a similar occurrence happens, he said.

"In this case, a lot of things worked out well. We have two people on board who had no injuries, although it was a very serious incident, obviously, when you lose power to both engines in an aircraft - that's never a good thing," Lee said.

"We are going to be working with the operator to better understand what was going on and why those engines quit."

One of the keys to understanding that is recovery of the aircraft in question so a mechanical exam can be undertaken.

The Transportation Safety Board does not get involved in recoveries, Lee said - that is up to Wolverine Air and its insurance company.

Harvey said on Nov. 25 he expected the aircraft to be recovered within the week. The Piper Navajo will likely be recovered by helicopter.

Aside from the damage to the right wing, he said, the aircraft is in good shape and will likely fly again once it is repaired.

"There's no windows broken, all the avionics are still working . everything except the engines. One wing is damaged a little on the wingtip because it touched a small tree but the left wing is fine, the fuselage is fine . all the doors are fine," he said.

Wolverine Air does not expect its operations to be affected by the loss of the aircraft. Harvey said winter is a slower season for the company, which usually requires one or two aircraft to be parked anyway.

"We should be fine," he said. "We'll have two twin and four single-engine (aircraft) - it should not affect our operation too much."

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