BREAKING: Kamloops Airport tweets that its aircraft rescue fleet is responding to a crash involving a CAF Snowbirds jet. An aircraft with the Canadian Forces Snowbirds demonstration jet team has crashed in Kamloops on Sunday.
The RCAF has been made aware of the crash as they have posted on twitter that “Our priority at this time is determining the status of our personnel and supporting emergency personnel”.
Witness Annette Schonewille said she saw the jet fall from the sky. Schonewille was parked with friends having coffee at McArthur Island Park in Kamloops.
https://twitter.com/RCAF_ARC/status/1262109345241849856
She said she watched one Snowbirds plane fly up and when the second one went after it, it appeared to catch on fire.
“The one plane continued and the other one, there was two puffs, it looked like puffs of smoke and one … was a ball of fire,” she said.
Below: Video Posted on Facebook. Contain Strong Languages
“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.”
Here's a video that was sent to us at @RadioNLNews from earlier this morning. #Kamloops pic.twitter.com/hc61YWscmQ
— Victor Mario Kaisar (@supermario_47) May 17, 2020
The Snowbirds were performing a flight across B.C.’s interior as a part of their cross-Canada tour dubbed Operation Inspiration, to raise spirits during the COVID-19 pandemic.
— Fat Apollo (@realfatapollo) May 17, 2020
Earlier Sunday, the team posted on Twitter that its flight plans were being disrupted by poor weather.
OKANAGAN: We know some areas are starting to clear up, however transit through some of the mountain passes have very low cloud cover which is unsafe for flying 9 jets. We are going to preposition to Comox to start working our way west.
— CF Snowbirds (@CFSnowbirds) May 17, 2020
More to come