A Sea King helicopter from 443 Maritime Helicopter Squadron made an emergency landing at the Victoria International Airport Tuesday, Dec. 2 following an unscheduled water landing.
Major Dale Arndt, operations officer for the squadron, says they are hosting a Sea King operations unit from the east coast this week and next and the incident occurred during a training sortie south of Victoria.
“A student pilot in training inadvertently conducted a water landing in our operational area south of Victoria,” he explained.
While the aircraft are designed to land in and take off from water, Arndt said this landing was not part of the training plan at the time.
The helicopter took off from the water, Arndt continued and the instructor ended the training session and declared an emergency. The Sea King flew back to the Victoria airport and landed without further incident.
Arndt added no one was injured and the aircraft was not damaged.
Arndt said the squadron’s Sea Kings, while designed to land in water, are more than 50 years old. They do not regularly perform this type of landing, he continued, as sea water has an impact on the aircraft.
Flights are suspended for the rest of the day but training was expected to resume this week.
Arndt said there will be an investigation into what happened on that flight, looking into the causes — both from aircraft and human angles.
