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Canada  

Declaring 'mayday'

There was a scare in the Arctic skies when weather twice forced a passenger plane to abandon its landing – eventually declaring a fuel emergency.

A Canadian North plane with 22 people on board was beginning its descent Nov. 30 on a trip from Iqaluit, Nunavut, to Igloolik, Nunavut, when the weather deteriorated.

Aviation website aeroinside.com reports the de Havilland Dash 8-100's landing was aborted and the aircraft instead set course for Cape Dorset, Nunavut.

But again the weather turned, and the plane faced low visibility, snow and freezing drizzle.

The crew, now forced to calculate whether the plane could make it back to Iqaluit with its remaining fuel, decided they could do it. However, they would be forced to land below minimum fuel requirements. 

About 50 kilometres after turning away from Cape Dorset, they declared "mayday" over low fuel, but managed to land at Iqaluit just over four hours after initial take off.

The Transportation Safety Board reports the plane landed with 400 pounds of fuel left.

Aeroinside's report was taken from information via the Civil Aviation Daily Occurrence Report System.

Transport Canada says it "endeavours to ensure the accuracy and integrity of the data contained within CADORS. However, the information within should be treated as preliminary, unsubstantiated and subject to change."



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