Saturday’s fatal crash of a large passenger airplane in the High Arctic proves the need for Canada to be able to mount fast, effective search and rescue efforts in the North, say Arctic experts.
“The Arctic is becoming like any other part of the country,” said Rob Huebert of the University of Calgary’s Centre for Strategic Studies.
“You’re going to have these accidents and you’re going to have these issues.
“When Air France goes down in Toronto Pearson airport, you’ve got all the infrastructure necessary to respond to it. The problem (is) the Arctic (doesn’t).”
A plane operated by the airline First Air crashed and caught fire in northern Nunavut Saturday, killing 12 people and injuring three.
Police say the jet, a 737-200, went down Saturday afternoon near the hamlet of Resolute Bay.
Witnesses said the plane crashed into a small hill near the airport runway. Local residents rushed to the site on all-terrain vehicles to see if they could help pull people from the flaming wreckage.
Fortunately, the Canadian military was able to help out quickly. There were 700 personnel in the region as part of its annual Operation Nanook northern exercise.
Concerns about search and rescue in the North have been increasing, especially as climate change makes the region more accessible. Canada recently signed an international treaty obliging it to take responsibility for a vast section of the Arctic that is difficult to get to and tough to work in.
With thousands of passenger airplanes and dozens of ships passing through Canada’s Arctic every year, search-and-rescue capability has long been a concern for the military’s own experts as well.
Last January, Maj. Tony Balasevicius wrote in the Canadian Military Journal that there has been little improvement since 1991 when a Hercules transport place crashed 30 kilometres from Alert on the northern tip of Ellesmere Island.
“Unfortunately, in terms of actual capability, little has changed,” wrote Balasevicius, who works for the Directorate of Future Security Analysis. “Currently, any attempt to mount even a small-scale operation would be difficult.”
Huebert points out that as tragic as the crash was, the survivors were fortunate that it wasn’t winter. They were also fortunate the military was already in the area.
“(It’s) the one time during the year when they actually have forces predeployed there,” Huebert said. “It was very fortunate to those who were injured and needed a response right away.”
The military has been beefing up its capability.
Earlier this summer, it tested its new Rapid Reaction Force North as part of Operation Nunalivut.
The force’s main component are the Rangers, largely aboriginal reserve units that exist in almost every Arctic community.
In case of emergency, the nearest available Ranger patrol would head to the scene using snow machines or locally available private aircraft. Communications and headquarters officers would be scrambled from Yellowknife to set up shop in the closest community and co-ordinate rescue attempts from there.
Arctic rescues are currently co-ordinated out of the Search-and-Rescue Centre in Trenton, Ont.
Military spokesmen say the goal is to eventually be able to get boots on the ground almost anywhere in the Arctic within six hours.
Saturday’s crash was a charter plane.
But tens of thousands of commercial flights fly Arctic skies every year.