Whitehorse

The pilot departed Whitehorse-Erik Nielsen Airport Runway 32L on a positioning flight to Yellowknife. Shortly after takeoff, he declared an emergency and attempted to return. On short final, he lost control of the airplane that crashed within the airport boundary. The pilot was seriously injured and the airplane was destroyed.

The DC-4 aircraft (serial number 10389) was on a visual flight rules flight from Bronson Creek, British Columbia, to Wrangell, Alaska, with a crew of three and about 16,600 pounds of cargo on board. The departure from the remote mining strip was uneventful until the aircraft approached 1,500 feet above sea level, when the crew heard a whining noise in their headsets. Believing that the whining was caused by an inverter problem, they switched inverters, but the problem persisted. Electrical instrument indications in the cockpit then became erratic, and the number 2 engine, on the left wing, began to misfire; its fire warning light in the cockpit illuminated briefly, but without the accompanying bell. The captain confirmed visually that the number 2 engine was on fire and the crew carried out the engine fire drill; however, the fire did not extinguish. The captain commenced a right-hand turn to return to the Bronson Creek airstrip, and announced to the crew that the number 2 engine had separated from the wing. The captain applied maximum power to the three remaining engines; however, the aircraft began to lose altitude. Both pilots held the rudder and aileron controls at full right deflection in an attempt to prevent the aircraft from yawing or rolling to the left. The aircraft was shaking violently at that time, and the crew members were unable to read any of the engine or flight instruments. At about 50 feet above ground level, just short of the Iskut River, the pilots closed the throttles. The aircraft descended rapidly, and the burning left wing struck a tree just as the fuselage contacted the surface of the river. The three occupants escaped the burning aircraft, and the first officer and load master swam to safety. The captain is missing and is presumed to have drowned. The aircraft was destroyed.

The DC-3 aircraft, with the captain, first officer, and an apprentice aircraft maintenance engineer on board, was to be ferried from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Whitehorse, Yukon. Just after take-off from runway 08, as the first officer was setting the engine power, the right propeller began to over-speed. The captain told the first officer to shut down and feather the right engine. The first officer did as instructed, and advised the Vancouver tower controller of the engine problem and that they would return to the airport to land on runway 08. The captain turned the aircraft to the right, onto downwind for runway 08; however, because the aircraft's altitude and airspeed were decreasing, the first officer advised the tower controller that they would land on runway 30. The aircraft continued to lose height, narrowly avoiding buildings in its path, and crashed to the ground, one mile short of runway 30. The three occupants were seriously injured during the impact and the post-crash fire; the captain died of his injuries eight days after the accident.

The flight was cleared on an IFR flight from Whitehorse to Juneau, via V-428 to Chill intersection, then direct to Juneau. Chill intersection was located on V-428, 36 miles south of Haines NDB on a bearing of 146°. On reaching Haines NDB, the pilot cancelled his IFR clearance and continued under visual flight rules (VFR). Subsequently, the aircraft crashed on a glacier between Haines and Juneau, approximately 15 miles southeast of Haines NDB at an elevation of about 4,500 feet. A pilot, flying about 5 miles southwest of the crash site at the time of the accident, reported a broken to overcast ceiling at 2,500 feet to 3,000 feet msl. The accident site was near the Haines transition of the Barlo 4 departure (sid). In that area, the minimum en route altitude for flight on the Haines transition was 9,000 feet under instrument flight rules.