One crew member dead and another injured after Canadian Snowbirds plane crashes ahead of flypast

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A Canadian Snowbirds display team jet has crashed into a residential neighborhood, killing one of the plane’s crew and seriously injuring another, and setting a home ablaze.

The plane got into trouble Sunday during a flyover intended to boost morale during the coronavirus pandemic. 

Footage, filmed by witnesses on the ground, shows at least one person ejected from the two-seater plane before the plane disappears behind a stand of trees and an explosion is heard. 

The Royal Canadian Air Force revealed that the crew member killed was Captain Jenn Casey, a public affairs officer who joined the aerobatics team in 2018, NBC reported. 

RCAF said Casey joined the military in 2014, and had previously worked as a broadcast journalist in Halifax and Ontario. 

Her team mate  Captain Richard MacDougall suffered serious injuries, but they are not thought to be life threatening.

‘It is with heavy hearts that we announce that one member of the CF Snowbirds team has died and one has sustained serious injuries,’ The Royal Canadian Air Force said in a tweet.  

The crash left debris scattered across the neighborhood near the airport in the city of Kamloops in British Columbia, 260 miles northeast of Vancouver.

Scene photos show a member of the Snowbirds being stretchered from a roof to an ambulance below. 

The Snowbirds, Canada’s equivalent of the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds or U.S. Navy’s Blue Angels, were performing as part of Operation Inspiration in an attempt to boost morale for those stuck in lockdown and essential workers.  

Kenny Hinds, who lives in a house seven doors down from the crash site, said it looked like the living room of the house where the crash occurred was on fire.

‘I just started running down the street. And I got there maybe a minute after it crashed and there was a couple of residents that had their hoses out and they were trying to put the flames out because it hit a house,’ he said. ‘It looked like most of it landed in the front yard, but maybe a wing or something went through the roof perhaps.’

‘So there was a bunch of people running around trying to see if we could get into the house to see if everybody’s OK.’

Video posted to Twitter by 6.10am in Kamloops appears to show two Snowbirds taking off from the airport. 

One of the aircraft subsequently climbed into the sky before rolling over and plunging to the ground.

‘Our number one priority at this time is determining the status of our personnel, the community and supporting emergency personnel. When appropriate, more information will be made available,’ the Department of National Defense said in a statement.

Operation Inspiration started in Nova Scotia earlier this month and features the team’s signature nine-jet formation. It was aimed at boosting morale amid the pandemic.

Marni Capostinsky said she lives across the street from the crash site and was out on the deck when she heard the plane getting closer.

‘We ran out under the cover to look and saw something black coming towards us, everyone hit the deck it was so loud,’ she said.

Capostinsky said there were large flames flaring on and off and a strong toxic smell filled the air.

Hinds had been watching the aircraft after hearing them take off, and said he was able to see the crash.

‘I heard ‘bang, bang,’ and just as I looked before it left my view from the house beside me, I saw the Snowbird going straight down,’ he said. ‘I saw what looked like a parachute about, say, 20 feet over the house, and it disappeared from sight, and the parachute hadn’t fully deployed yet — it was still sort of straight up and down.’

Witness Annette Schonewille said she saw the jets take off while she was parked with friends having coffee at McArthur Island Park in Kamloops.

‘The one plane continued and the other one … was a ball of fire,’ she said. ‘No noise, it was strange, and then the plane just did a cartwheel and fell right out of the sky. Just boom, straight down, and then a burst of black, black smoke.’

Sunday’s crash follows the downing of another Snowbird in the U.S. state of Georgia last October, where the team was scheduled to perform in an air show. Capt. Kevin Domon-Grenier sustained minor injuries when he ejected from the plane, which crashed into a farmer’s field. No one else was hurt.

The Snowbirds have performed at airshows across Canada and the U.S. for decades and are considered a key tool for raising awareness about — and recruiting for — the air force. Eleven aircraft are used during shows, with nine flying and two kept as spares.

The air force obtained its Tutor jets in 1963 and has used them in air demonstrations since 1971. 

Prior to Sunday’s crash, seven pilots and one passenger had been killed and several aircraft had been lost over the course of the Snowbirds’ history.

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