Pilot killed, thousands left without power in northwestern Alberta plane crash

Federal authorities are heading to northwestern Alberta to investigate a plane crash that killed the pilot and knocked out power around Fort Vermilion, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said.

The incident, reported to Fort Vermilion RCMP at 8 p.m. Mountain Standard Time on Saturday, occurred in a field near Township Road 1090 and Range Road 152, a few dozen kilometres northwest of Fort Vermilion, a hamlet about 560 kilometres northwest of Edmonton, according to a news release issued late Saturday night by RCMP.

Police said emergency responders found the pilot, the only person on board, dead at the scene. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police reported no other casualties.

As of Saturday night, Royal Canadian Mounted Police had cordoned off the scene for investigators from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB), police said.

The TSB, which did not immediately respond to CBC News’ request for information, is investigating traffic accidents to prevent similar incidents in the future. The agency’s investigations do not assign liability and its findings cannot be used for legal or disciplinary action, but coroners and medical examiners can use them in their own investigations.

Police said the incident “affected power to all homes and some rural areas” in the area.

ATCO Electric, which provides power to much of rural Alberta, sent crews to the scene Saturday night after learning that a “medical emergency” had damaged a power line that supplies power to La Créte, Alberta, and the surrounding area, according to a social media post from the company. La Créte is just southwest of Fort Vermilion.

As of Sunday morning, more than 3,800 customers were affected by three separate outages in the region, which the company said began at 8:10 pm MT on Saturday. Power outage map.

An ATCO Electric spokesperson told CBC News that all repairs are expected to be completed by Sunday around 2:30 p.m.