A Canadian Forces Snowbirds flight turned tragically wrong on Sunday. Witnesses watched as a plane nosedived and crashed in Kamloops.
CTV News Vancouver Island has confirmed with witnesses at the scene that one of the Snowbirds pilots crashed on Sunday just before noon.
“I heard these two huge bangs and all of a sudden up in the sky there was a dark black circle of smoke,” said Kerri Turatus.
She was driving nearby and drove to Glenview Avenue, where the crash happened.
“It was red and white and you could distinguish on the one wing and the backside, I took a picture of it, being the red and white Snowbirds,” said Turatus.
Another witness tells CTV News he was in his living room and heard the Snowbirds take off.
“One of the snowbirds flying a little lower than expected did a barrel roll over Crestline,” said Mike Trafford. “There was a flash and a spark shortly after the barrel role and I saw the pilot eject and the plane basically took a nose dive straight into the ground - or in this case, what I’ve heard, straight into a house."
Horrifying video is emerging online of a plane nosediving and a large bang.
“At first I thought, 'Oh he’s doing a barrel roll, that’s a pretty neat trick.' We’ve seen snowbirds and these pilots are pretty good pilots and they can do some pretty amazing things,” said Trafford.
“But then the spark and seeing a pilot eject, the first thing I though was, 'This isn’t right.' And it was almost a split second between seeing the pilot eject and the plane go straight down.”
The Snowbirds flew into British Columbia for their western leg of Operation Inspiration and were heading to Vancouver Island.
“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 nine jets,” reads a tweet from the group posted earlier Sunday morning.
The Snowbirds were expected to fly through the Okanagan Valley on Saturday, but said they were going to preposition to Comox and start working their way west.
A witness from the scene says the crash happened on Glenview Avenue and a home nearby was engulfed in flames.
There is no official word on the condition of the pilot.
- With files from CTV -