Six people were killed on Tuesday in Canada's far north when a small plane carrying workers from a diamond mine crashed, a source close to the investigation told AFP.
Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto said a plane heading to its Diavik mine “carrying several members of its staff” had crashed, causing “several deaths”.
Contact with the Northwestern Air plane was lost shortly after takeoff around 8:50 a.m. local time (3:50 p.m. GMT) near Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, according to the Joint Operations Safety Coordination Center.
The plane was carrying seven people, one of whom survived, according to the source close to the investigation. His health condition is unknown.
Rescuers traveled to the crash site by snowmobile or parachute to the site, 1.1 kilometers from the take-off runway.
Flights to Fort Smith, a small town near the border with Alberta, were canceled until Wednesday.
Jacob Stasholm, president of Rio Tinto, said his company was “absolutely devastated by the news.”
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