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Kelowna  

TSB to reveal crash report

The investigation report into a fatal 2016 plane crash just outside Kelowna that left four people dead will be revealed on Thursday.

The Cessna 500 Citation owned by Norjet Inc. took off at 9:32 p.m. from Kelowna International Airport on Oct. 13, 2016.

At 10:07 p.m., Surrey Air Traffic Control Centre alerted Kelowna RCMP about losing contact with the plane.

The flight was travelling to Calgary, but struck terrain just 11 kilometres north of the airport, east of Wood Lake. No emergency or distress calls were made, and no emergency locator transmitter signal was received.

Pilot Jim Kruk, ex-Alberta premier Jim Prentice, Sheldon Reid, and Ken Gellatly all died in the crash. The jet was destroyed on impact.

The Cessna Citation 500 is a turbofan-powered, small-sized business jet. There was not a cockpit voice recorder or flight data recorder on board.

“The team will be reviewing any electronic components on the aircraft from which they can retrieve data to help understand the flight profile,” the Transportation Safety Board of Canada said during its investigation, which was made more challenging due to the absence of a black box.

A news conference will be held to reveal the TSB's report from the crash at 9 a.m. (PST) in Calgary.

The investigator-in-charge is Beverley Harvey, who has 30 years of civil aviation experience and was also a pilot with a commuter airline.

Castanet will be providing multi-platform coverage of the conference.



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