A Buffalo Airways aircraft crash-landed in Deline just after midday on Friday following an engine failure.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) says the cargo flight, from Yellowknife, had been bound for Norman Wells when an engine failed.
The aircraft, a Curtiss C-46 Commando – of a type first built in 1942 – altered course and put down in Deline with its landing gear still up.
According to police, four crew members were on board. No fatalities have been reported and there were no injuries.
The Department of Transportation told Moose FM the incident has been passed to the TSB. Photographs sent to Moose FM appear to show a beached but largely intact aircraft with emergency vehicles on the scene.
Buffalo Airways has not commented. The airline’s website states that Buffalo operates two C-46 aircraft, noting their ability to take “bulky freight into short, unprepared strips that are so commonly found in the NWT”.
Buffalo’s website adds that both C-46 aircraft have been in service since the end of the Second World War, flying for 70 years each.
In December 2013, a Buffalo C-46 caught fire at Yellowknife Airport – prompting a TSB investigation. Nobody was hurt in that incident.
A year earlier, in November 2012, elements of a Buffalo C-46’s landing gear failed on arrival into Yellowknife. There were no injuries.
