Weather a possible factor in Nunavik plane crash: police

Visibility in Kangirsuk was next to nil the evening a Piper 23 crashed outside the community. (GRAPH COURTESY OF WEATHERSTATS.CA)

Investigators looking into the June 11 plane crash in Nunavik that killed three say that weather may have been a factor in the accident.

On June 11, a private Piper 23 twin-engine aircraft, which had departed from Val d’Or and made one refueling stop in Radisson, went down about two kilometres from the runway in Kangirsuk, on Nunavik’s Ungava Bay coast.

The aircraft was piloted by 77-year-old Jean Robert Corbin of Winnipeg, carrying two passengers — Robert Drapeau, 48 and his son, Alexandre Veilleux, 23. All three died.

The eldest Drapeau helped run a construction company in Kangirsuk and was coming to work there for the summer.

According to the first elements in an investigation, being jointly carried out by police, the Transportation and Safety Board and Quebec’s coroner’s office, weather could have played a role in the crash, Quebec’s provincial police, the Sûreté du Québec, said June 17.

Around 10 p.m. on June 11, the approximate time the Kativik Regional Government said its transportation department received an emergency locator transmitter, the temperature in Kangirsuk hovered just above 0 degree Celsius, according to Environment Canada data, with winds gusting up to 40 kilometres an hour.

It would have been light out, but near sunset, although visibility was almost nil that evening, weather stats show, along with a 100 per cent cloud cover.

The investigation continues, the SQ said June 17.

The TSB said earlier this week that it won’t be doing a full investigation into the crash, instead opting to work with police and the coroner’s office.

Of the collaborating partners, only the police — both the Sûreté du Québec and the Kativik Regional Police Force — have been to the crash site.

But TSB senior investigator Denis Deroy told Nunatsiaq News the only difference with a full investigation is that he’s doing his work from a distance, rather than on site.

“It’s costly,” said Montreal-based Deroy, of travelling to Nunavik. “And the fact that we some police there….we’ve asked them what to look for.”

Instead, police are sending Deroy photos of the plane and crash site, along with interviews from any witnesses in the community.

Authorities in Val d’Or and Radisson, where the plan departed from and stopped from refuelling, are also interviewing anyone who came in contact with the plane and its three passengers before they left June 11.

The TSB’s investigation is considered a class 5 at this point — as are most fatal aircraft accidents in Canada — but it could be upgraded to a class 3, or public investigation, Deroy said, if more serious extenuating circumstances are found.

The company the plane was insured with will arrive in Kangirsuk over the weekend to do its own investigation of the site, he added. The insurance company is also responsible for cleaning up the crash site, and packing the aircraft in a container to be shipped to Montreal this summer.