Canadian aerobatic jet crashes amid pandemic show; 1 dead

TORONTO —  A Canadian aerobatic jet crashed into a British Columbia neighborhood Sunday during a flyover intended to boost morale during the pandemic, killing one crew member, seriously injuring another and setting a house on fire. Video appeared to show the plane’s crew ejecting.

The crash left debris scattered across the neighborhood near the airport in the city of Kamloops, 260 miles northeast of Vancouver. The Snowbirds are Canada’s equivalent of the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds or the U.S. Navy’s Blue Angels.

“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 air force said the surviving member does not have life-threatening injuries.

A senior government official identified the deceased as Capt. Jennifer Casey, who served as a spokesperson for the Snowbirds. The official was not authorized to speak ahead of the announcement of her death and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Video posted to Twitter appears to show two Snowbirds taking off from Kamloops Airport. One of the aircraft subsequently climbed into the sky before rolling over and plunging to the ground. The video appears to show at least one person ejecting from the plane before it disappears behind a stand of trees and an explosion is heard.

A man who lives seven houses from the crash site and had been watching the aircraft said he saw “the Snowbird going straight down.”

“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,” Kenny Hinds said.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said the cause of the crash is under investigation.

Rose Miller lives directly across the street from where the plane hit. She’d watched the Snowbirds arrive on Saturday, and she went to her front window on Sunday when she heard the roar of jet engines.

Miller said she heard a loud bang and wondered whether it might be a sonic boom. Then she watched the plane smash into the ground.

“It looked to me like it was mostly on the road, but it just exploded. It went everywhere,” she said. “In fact, I got a big, huge piece in my backyard. The cops said it was the ejection seat.”

Miller said a couple in their early 70s live in the home. Both are OK, she said, noting that she’d spoken with them after they were evacuated to a nearby street. The woman had been in the basement while the man was behind the house.

Miller said a section of roof on a home on a nearby street has been covered up.

“This accident really shakes us to our core,” Kamloops Mayor Ken Christian said. About five houses had to be evacuated.

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.

The scene of Sunday’s jet crash, which left debris scattered around the neighborhood.

(Elwood Delaney via Associated Press)

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 toward us. Everyone hit the deck, it was so loud,” she said.

Hinds said it looked as if 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 frontyard, but maybe a wing or something went through the roof perhaps.”

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