Emergency landing on rural St. Andrews road

The pilot turned around and said, “Make sure your seat belts are fastened and hold on tight.”

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Seven people, including the pilot, were on board the twin-engine plane when it crashed.

Radio-Canada

A pilot and his six passengers suffered more fear than harm Thursday evening after having to make an emergency landing on a road in the rural municipality of St. Andrews when their small plane broke down mid-flight.

Byron Cassie was on the charter flight in a small turboprop Piper Navajo with six other people, including the pilot.

He remembers that the sun was setting over the snowy fields north of Winnipeg, when silence suddenly began to reign in the small plane: the left engine had just stopped. x27;stop.

I've never been on a plane where this has happened, but I know you can fly with a single engine. So everyone took pictures and started joking around, Cassie said.

They were returning from the isolated community of Sachigo Lake First Nation in northwestern Ontario. Mr. Cassie had gone there for work to receive operator training at the water treatment plant.

However, the jokes ended abruptly about ten minutes later, when the second engine gave up the ghost, he explains. The pilot turned around and said: Make sure your seat belts are fastened and hold on tight!

Fortunately, the pilot was able to guide his machine without incident under power lines to Pigeon Bluff Road, a narrow strip of gravel bordered by snow-covered fields about twenty kilometers north of Winnipeg.

The landing was smooth, just like at the airport.

A quote from Byron Cassie, Passenger

No one was injured, and the plane escaped without damage.

From what I know I understood, we ran out of fuel. I don't know why, either a calculation error or stronger winds than expected. But in the circumstances […] [the pilot] did an excellent job. He remained very calm.

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The plane had traveled to Sachigo Lake First Nation in northwestern Ontario.

< p class="StyledBodyHtmlParagraph-sc-48221190-4 hnvfyV">Once on the ground, the jokes started again between the occupants of the aircraft who had been able to regain their senses. We were all relieved and in a very good mood, says Mr. Cassie.

Very quickly, the seven survivors from the sky saw the flashing lights of emergency services in the distance as RCMP officers, firefighters and paramedics rushed to the scene of what they believed to be a plane crash .

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A helicopter also flew over the makeshift landing strip before leaving the scene when it was determined that the incident did not cause any injuries, explains Byron Cassie.

It's a very good conclusion to a story that could have ended very badly.

A quote from Byron Cassie, Passenger

With information from Darren Bernhardt