Pilot Credited With Preventing Serious Or Fatal Injury

A DC-3 belonging to Canada's Buffalo Airways experienced an engine fire shortly after takeoff Monday, and executed a near-perfect emergency landing in a field near Yellowknife Airport.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reports that one of the plane's engines caught fire about 30 seconds after departing Yellowknife for Hay River in the Northwest Territory with 21 passengers and a crew of three on board. The pilot attempted to return to the airport, but came down short of the runway in a field.

A passenger on board the aircraft said that the airplane narrowly missed striking some transmission lines from a hydro-electric plant as the pilot attempted to land back at Yellowknife. Passenger David Connely said "we were cutting through the trees" as the plane came down. The pilot made a gear-up landing, finally stopping in a ditch about 300 yards from the runway. No one on board was seriously injured.

Buffalo Airways owner Joe McBryan credited the crew with quick thinking and superlative flying. He said the DC-3 was built to endure difficult landings. "Mechanical problems do happen, and it's how you react to it," he told the CBC. "I think they reacted very well to it."

(DC-3 pictured in file photo. Not accident airplane)

FMI: www.tsb.gc.ca/eng