Summary
- A damaged CL-215 was successfully airlifted by a CH-47 Chinook helicopter after weeks of planning and government approval.
- To prepare for the airlift, the aircraft had to be lightened by removing heavy equipment and fluids, and pulled out of the lake by hand-cranking.
- The CL-215 was safely transported to a hangar for repairs and should be ready for the 2024 fire season after a few months of work.
In late-October, a damaged and stranded CL-215 was ‘picked-up’ by a CH-47 Chinook helicopter. The rescue was conducted approximately two months after the flying boat-amphibious aircraft was damaged while conducting aerial firefighting operations in the Canadian north. The operation to retrieve the waterbomber was performed smoothly with a company technician capturing video and posting it to social media.
Needing a lift
On August 28th, 2023, a Bombardier-built CL-215 belonging to Buffalo Airways was conducting aerial firefighting operations when it struck a rock reef. As the online magazine Vertical notes, the rock punctured the aircraft’s underbelly. The resulting fast flow of water into the CL-215’s keel buckled its front structure and rendered it inoperational.
The pilots taxiied the plane over to a small island and tied it to a small tree before a helicopter came to rescue them. The process to recover the aircraft involved weeks of careful planning and even special government approval.
Planning the recovery operation
In terms of recovering the aircraft, the main concern for Buffalo Airways was the fast-approaching winter season. Once temperatures dipped sufficiently, the aircraft would be frozen ‘into’ the lake, making things infinitely more difficult.
Two things needed to happen in advance of airlifting the CL-215 out:
- A special exemption had to be acquired from Transport Canada to move the aircraft. The application for this exemption was filed on September 19th, and took a month to process.
- The aircraft’s weight needed to be reduced significantly in order to be lifted by the CH-47 Chinook.
Technician at Buffalo Airways (and creator of the now-internet-famous video), Benjamin Tessier, described to Vertical the many heavy objects that were removed. This included the aircraft’s engines, radios, pump systems, and fluids. “We removed 10,000 pounds of equipment plus about 13 drums of fluids. All of that took about two weeks,” he told the magazine.
Additionally, the aircraft had to be pulled out of the lake as its keel was too full of water, which would have added too much weight for the Chinook. This consisted of a three-day-long process involving six men taking turns to hand-crank the aircraft onto the shore.
The big day
After careful planning and preparation, a CH-47 Chinook operated by Montana’s Billings Air Service flew in on October 30th to execute the plan. Mechanics from Buffalo and Billings flew to the site. They were also joined by the general manager of Alberta-based Airborne Energy Solutions (AES), whose team had provided a great deal of support and guidance on risk management for the operation.
“It was so bizarre to see such a big machine in remote little Mitchell Lake on Duck Island. They didn’t waste any time at all. Everything the pilot did was deliberate. He positioned himself in the wind, cable already dangling. We had a 50-foot extension cable going from the plane to where he hooked on. As soon as tension was there, it just went up. The Chinook didn’t budge, didn’t seem to struggle, there was no noticeable change in engine noise.” -Benjamin Tessier, Aerospace Engineering Technician, Buffalo Airways
The CL-215 took a 45-minute ‘ride’ and was delivered to a hangar operated by Buffalo Airways at its main base at Yellowknife Airport. It will take a few months of repairs to return the waterbomber to serviceable condition, but work over the winter will see it ‘fit-to-fly’ by the spring, just in time for the 2024 fire season.
Sources: Vertical