More than a year and a half after a fatal plane crash near Fort Smith, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada says it is still moving through the “report phase” of its investigation.
On the morning of January 23, 2024, a Northwestern Air Lease flight headed for the Diavik diamond mine crashed shortly after leaving Fort Smith’s airport.
The two pilots and four of the passengers on board were killed. A fifth passenger was injured.
According to the Transportation Safety Board, or TSB, investigators have conducted multiple interviews, recovered the cockpit voice recorder, and collected and analyzed data for the flight as well as video footage of fuelling, passenger loading and departure.
Engines and propellers were removed from the wreckage, the TSB said, and were shipped to their manufacturers for examination. No anomalies were found that would have contributed to the accident.
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Investigators also determined that snow that had accumulated on the aircraft before takeoff did not directly affect its performance.
The investigation is now focused on human performance and decision-making, the TSB said.
The report phase – the third and final phase of TSB investigations – involves an initial draft report going through an internal review process. The board then approves a confidential draft report and sends it to concerned people and corporations, who have the opportunity to dispute any information they believe to be incorrect.
The board considers that feedback before publicly releasing a final report. In this case, the investigation has been in the report phase since at least January, when the TSB noted on the one-year anniversary of the crash that it had reached that point.
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The TSB said its investigation into the January 2024 plane crash near Fort Smith is a class two investigation. It said those investigations are complex and involve several safety issues requiring in-depth analysis.
Class two investigations often result in recommendations, the TSB said, and are generally completed within 600 days. As of Thursday, 597 days have passed since the accident near Fort Smith.
Hugo Fontaine, a spokesperson for the safety board, told Cabin Radio that while it “strives to meet the target timelines” for publishing investigation reports, those timelines “may be exceeded due to the complexity of the investigation, delays that may be encountered during the various related activities, and delays that may arise due to the need for investigative resources to support new reported occurrences and investigations.”
Fontaine said that, as this is an active investigation, the TSB could not disclose further details about the report or when it is expected to be released.
“I can assure you that we are fully committed to releasing it as soon as feasible,” he wrote.
