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Northern Thunderbird Air Unknown aircraft accident

27 Oct 2011 · Vancouver, Canada

Accident

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Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's injuries. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.

Event

NTSB case
ANC12WA007
Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
Accident
InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
Unknown · led by another country; figures from NTSB notifications
Event fatalities
Unknown
Ground fatalities
Unknown
OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
Charter & commuter
WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
Not recorded

Unknown aircraft

RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From not recordedTo not recorded
Aircraft age
Not recorded
Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
Non-U.S., Commercial
Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
Not recorded
Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
Not recorded
DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
Substantial

Cause areas

No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.

Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Vancouver, the place the record names. Not the accident site.

NTSB narrative

On October 27, 2011, about 1600 pacific daylight time, a Beechcraft King Air 100, C-GXRX, operated by Northern Thunderbird Air, Inc. as a non-scheduled passenger flight, collided with terrain while attempting to land at the Vancouver International Airport, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed and an instrument flight rules flight plan was in effect. The airplane sustained substantial damage, and a postcrash fire ensued. The pilot was killed. The copilot, seven passengers, and two people on the ground were seriously injured.

The accident investigation is under the jurisdiction and control of the Canadian government. This report is for informational purposes only and contains only information released by or obtained from the Canadian government. Further information pertaining to this accident may be obtained from:

Transportation Safety Board of Canada 200 Promenade du Portage Place du Centre, 4th Floor Hull, Quebec K1A 1K8 Canada

Tel.: (1) 819-994-4252 (1) 819-997-7887 (24 hour) E-mail: airops@tsb.gc.ca Fax: (1) 819-953-9586 Website: http://www.tsb.gc.ca

Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record ANC12WA007
Event ID
20111031X41340
Case number
ANC12WA007
Dataset
full-current
Source SHA-256
5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (5)
  • Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
  • No bulk values were replaced by the NTSB case API.
  • The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
  • API snapshot SHA-256: 54d9e533c17f777ffc6e9c73466cc8223f42c24acb0b0c80ff4d484e5296c36f; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:53:53.520Z.
  • Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: operator. The NTSB narrative names the operator: "a Beechcraft King Air 100, C-GXRX, operated by Northern Thunderbird Air, Inc. as a non-scheduled passenger flight"