Mar 18, 14:06 est

Two killed, two injured in plane crashes

Rescuers hampered by a heavy snowstorm towed an injured woman out of the bush by sled after the small plane she was in crashed in northern Saskatchewan on Friday.

Her husband, who also survived the crash, was rescued earlier and flown to hospital in Prince Albert, Sask.

And in a separate plane crash Friday, two Saskatchewan men were killed in the northern territory of Nunavut. One of the men was from Langham and the other from Saskatoon.

The fatal crash happened around 1:30 p.m. near Kasba Lake when a DC-3 carrying the two men went down, RCMP in Nunavut said.

Details of that crash were still sketchy. It was known the aircraft took off from a remote community called Points North, Sask., 850 kilometres northeast of Prince Albert.

About 3:30 p.m., the husband and wife from Big River, Sask., crashed their plane near Mahigan Lake, about 175 kilometres north of Prince Albert.

Cpl. Kerry Swallow, with the RCMP detachment in Prince Albert, said search and rescue personnel from Canadian Forces Base Cold Lake in northeastern Alberta were able to reach the couple first.

The military rescuers were already at the site giving medical aid when the RCMP ground units and an ambulance managed to get there around 6 p.m.

The ground units had trouble getting to the scene because of the remote location and the bad weather.

The man had undetermined injuries and was taken to hospital in Prince Albert by helicopter. Rescuers were on the scene longer trying to help the woman.

''The woman was eventually taken from the accident site by rescue sled, towed by snowmobile half a kilometre to the waiting ambulance,'' Swallow said Saturday.

She was taken to Prince Albert with non-life-threatening injuries, he said.

Swallow didn't know what kind of plane the two were in or their destination. While severe weather was a factor in the rescue, he didn't know if it played a role in the crash.

RCMP and the Transportation Safety Board are investigating.

http://www.thestar.ca/thestar/editorial/updates/news/200003190_PLANE-CRASHE.html

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), March 19, 2000