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Kelowna  

C-17 special delivery

A damaged aircraft was brought into Kelowna for repairs Friday – in the belly of another aircraft.

The partial de Havilland Canada CC-138 Twin Otter was brought to KF Aerospace in the body of a Canadian Forces C-17 transport plane.

The C-17 touched down at Kelowna International Airport Friday afternoon.

The Twin Otter suffered significant damage from an incident in the high north three months ago.

According to Aviation Safety Network, the plane was engaged in a military exercise about 140 kilometres north of Inuvik when it struck a snowdrift while landing on some sea ice. 

The incident happened March 11.

Capt. Jen Halliwell with 1 Canadian Air Division in Winnipeg tells Castanet News the Defence Department ferried the wreck down to Inuvik while they assessed the best way to get the plane to Kelowna.

"This is the first time we've moved a Twin Otter in a C-17 like this," said Halliwell. "We had to look into that and see how we were going to do that. We had to get the packaging parts custom made to make sure they would fit into a C-17."

The size of the Twin Otter necessitated the plane be transported in stages.

After delivering the the first part of the plane Friday, the C-17 left Saturday morning and was to return either Saturday afternoon or Sunday with the rest of the aircraft.

KF Aerospace has been performing maintenance and repairs of Department of Defence planes for about 10 years.



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