After their plane crashed in the wilderness of northern Saskatchewan passengers aboard a West Wind Aviation ATR 42 spent about a half hour freeing themselves from the wreckage as local police and volunteers mustered a rescue effort. The aircraft carrying 22 passengers and three crew took off from Fond du Lac, a fly-in-only First Nations settlement of about 900, about 6 p.m. last Wednesday and crashed less than a mile from the airport. No one was killed and only a few passengers were seriously hurt but many were trapped in the twisted wreckage and those who were able to free themselves couldn’t open the emergency exit. “I said ‘You guys, don’t panic. We have to help each other,'” passenger Arson Fern told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).
Fern, whose disabled son was pinned in the cabin, and three other relatively uninjured passengers reached the rear emergency exit, the only accessible door. Using whatever they could find as pry bars the four of them took about 30 minutes to wrench open the exit, which incorporates an airstair. Then they helped passengers to the door where they “fell out of the aircraft, no energy.” First responders and volunteers from the community arrived to evacuate the injured and secure the aircraft, which did not catch fire.
