Search for two crew members after air tanker crash

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VICTORIA – Search and rescue teams are trying again to reach the site of a air tanker that crashed in the B.C. Interior after steep terrain and a raging wildfire held them back.

The aircraft, owned by Abottsford-based Conair Ltd. and contracted by the B.C. Ministry of Forests, crashed Saturday evening while helping battle wild fires about 18 kilometres south of Lytton.

The RCMP say the aircraft had been operated by a two person crew whose fate was unknown Sunday morning.

The crash site had been located Saturday by a second plane shadowing the Conair aircraft, but rescue crews were unable to access the area due to harsh terrain and a blaze sparked by the crash itself.

Coast guard officer Matt Thirkell, who is with the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Victoria, said the next few hours will provide crucial information.

“At this point ground search and rescue teams are being organized on scene to attempt to access the crash location,” he said.

“We should be able to get a sense of the condition of the aircraft and if there’s any probability of finding survivors.”  The fire at the crash site is still thought to be burning, Thirkell said.

RCMP Cpl. Dan Moskaluk said police and paramedics came within 500 metres of the site Saturday but were forced to turn back due to dangerous conditions.  “Witnesses reported seeing the plane drop from the sky and seeing it crash,” he said in a statement released Sunday.  “The crash site had erupted into flames and was fully engulfed sparking a wildfire itself.”

The rescue centre’s Captain Marguerite Dodds-Lepinski, said earlier that a Cormorant helicopter and a Buffalo fixed-wing aircraft from 19 Wing Comox had been dispatched to the site.

Conair spokesman Rick Pedersen told The Canadian Press the crash occurred just after 8 p.m. yesterday and the company had been in touch with the Transportation Safety Board of Canada.

The TSB was expected to send crash investigators to the site.

Moskaluk said the Lytton RCMP were also in contact with Conair to assist them and the affected families with “this tragic incident.”

As of Saturday 318 forest fires were burning across B.C., with the largest covering 25 square kilometres.

Air tankers along with helicopters and heavy machinery were supporting upwards of 1,000 firefighters on the ground.  Residents are currently under evacuation order or alert in six areas in the Kamloops-area and the Cariboo region.

Due to the tinder dry conditions, a campfire ban extends across about 70 per cent of the province, with violators facing fines from $345 to $1 million and up to three years behind bars.

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