An Air Canada Boeing 777 made an unscheduled stop at Yellowknife Airport on Monday after a midair medical emergency.
Flight AC2 from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport to Toronto Pearson International began diverting to Yellowknife as it cleared the Mackenzie Mountains just before 10:30am.
In audio recordings archived online, air traffic controllers can be heard confirming a medical emergency had taken place on board.
The aircraft dumped fuel – a common procedure to lighten a plane’s weight if landing early in unexpected circumstances – before arriving in the territorial capital at 11am.
There are no scheduled flights to or from Yellowknife served by such a large jet. As a result, the Boeing 777 stood out at the airport in its ice-blue livery, commonly used by Air Canada prior to 2017.
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Yellowknife is an occasional destination for diverting transcontinental flights.
An Airbus A330 heading from Frankfurt to Calgary made a similar diversion in 2023, while a Delta Boeing 767 en route from Amsterdam to Seattle did the same thing in 2019.
The nature of the medical emergency and the condition of the person involved were not immediately clear. An ambulance was understood to have been standing by when the flight touched down.
The aircraft departed Yellowknife for Toronto just after 2pm.
