6 dead in Canada plane crash, one survivor taken to hospital

Four passengers and two crew members were killed when a plane headed to a diamond mine crashed in Canada’s Northwest Territories, authorities said Wednesday, Report informs via CNN.

The lone survivor of Tuesday morning’s crash was initially taken to Fort Smith Health Centre and then transported by medevac to Stanton Territorial Hospital in Yellowknife, the Northwest Territories Coroner Service said in a statement. The survivor’s condition was not publicly released.

The plane was “en route from Fort Smith to the Diavik Diamond Mine” when the crash happened, the coroner’s office said. The global mining company Rio Tinto said it had employees on the aircraft.

“We have been informed by authorities that a plane on its way to our Diavik mine, carrying a number of our people, crashed near Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, Canada, resulting in fatalities,” the company said in a statement Wednesday.

Fort Smith is on the border with Alberta.

The Northwest Territories Coroner Service said its representatives are working with local authorities to access the crash site and start the recovery process.

On Tuesday morning, the Canadian Rangers and the Royal Canadian Air Force responded to a report of lost contact with an aircraft outside of Fort Smith, an RCAF spokesperson in Winnipeg, David Lavallee, told CNN Canada news partner CBC News.

Visibility was poor during the early hours Tuesday morning but improved by around 10 a.m., according to CNN’s weather team.