A Canadair CT-114 Tutor jet crashed shortly after takeoff from Kamloops, British Columbia, on Sunday, killing one and injuring another. There are no reports of any injuries on the ground after the jet slammed into a house in a residential neighborhood.
There’s at least one video, taken by a resident while watching the jet depart, as one of two Tutor jets in a two-ship takeoff. All signs are normal until one of the jets climbs sharply—engine failure will be closely looked at—and seems to be turning back toward the runway from an altitude that looks to be greater than pattern altitude. Then, as it was part way through a 180 turn, it seemed to stall in close proximity to what look to be two ejection seats firing, before the jet dove nose first into the ground, causing a huge plume of black smoke.
The two aboard the plane were the pilot Captain Richard MacDougall, who received serious, non-life threatening injuries, and Captain Jennifer Casey, who died. It wasn’t clear from the video when the chutes of the two were able to inflate, or if Casey’s did inflate—MacDougall’s chute must have opened for him to have survived.
A former reporter from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Casey was the public affairs officer for the Snowbirds since 2014. As a radio journalist, she served as reporter, producer and on-air host for stations in both Nova Scotia and Ontario before joining the Royal Canadian Air Force. Her age wasn’t immediately available.
The Snowbirds were participating in Operation Inspiration, a nine-jet demonstration tour that was making its way through Canada to inspire hope for those impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The CT-114 is a two-seat, side-by-side single-engine jet that was manufactured from 1963 to 1966 by Canada as a domestic-built trainer.
