A Transportation Safety Board report released Jan. 7, 2026, says a Cessna U206F on a power-line inspection flight southeast of Lloydminster stalled during a steep, low turn on Sept. 8, 2024, and hit the ground within seconds, fatally injuring the pilot and the observer on board.
What the investigators found
The aircraft, registration C-FKZO and operated by KBM Forestry Consultants Inc., left Kindersley Regional Aerodrome in Saskatchewan at 2:47 p.m. Central Standard Time for the second portion of a visual flight rules inspection flight that day. The work was part of a multi-day contract to photograph power lines southeast of Lloydminster Airport, on the Alberta-Saskatchewan boundary.
The Transportation Safety Board, in investigation A24C0095, says the two crew members shared duties. Whoever flew in the morning operated the cameras in the afternoon. Onboard cameras recovered after the crash showed the aircraft following the power lines while the observer took still photographs, including repeated passes over an intersection of lines.
After one series of photographs, the pilot turned about 190 degrees to the right so the observer could take two more pictures of the same intersection. The aircraft then drifted closer to the line, the last photographs were taken, and the pilot began a second right turn to rejoin the original flight path. Investigators found that turn was tighter than the turns recorded earlier on the flight.
Three seconds from stall to impact
The board says the second turn began at roughly 200 to 300 feet above ground level — described in early reporting as about 60 metres. During the turn, the aircraft stalled and its bank angle to the right increased. It descended at a rate of at least 3,000 feet per minute, began rolling back toward wings level, and struck the terrain three seconds after the stall began.
The pilot was killed in the crash. The observer died of his injuries three days later in hospital. The aircraft was destroyed. The board found no indication that medical or physiological factors had affected the crew, who were trained for low-altitude work.
In its report, issued Tuesday, the board warned directly about the manoeuvre involved. “When required to conduct steep turns at low height, pilots need to be cautious given that there may be insufficient height to recover from an inadvertent stall,” the board said.
That warning reflects the aerodynamics set out in the report. A steeper bank increases load factor, and a higher load factor raises the speed at which a wing stalls. Investigators estimated the aircraft was travelling between 86 and 92 miles per hour at the time, with a bank angle slightly higher than on its previous turns, and found the force applied to the elevator during the final turn was greater than before — a combination that would have increased stall speed just as the aircraft ran out of height.
Changes at the operator
KBM Forestry Consultants Inc., based at Thunder Bay Airport in Ontario, provides geographic information system services to government, municipal and industry clients, including forestry, mining and utilities work. At the time of the crash, its aerial work fleet included eight fixed-wing aircraft fitted with LiDAR, multispectral and thermal imaging cameras, high-resolution mapping cameras and positioning sensors.
The board says the company has since updated its safety policies and flight-time requirements for pilots. The report does not assign fault or liability. As the board notes in all of its investigations, its role is to advance transportation safety, not to determine civil or criminal responsibility.
The Lloydminster flight was a Class 4 investigation, a category the board describes as limited in scope. Even within those limits, the sequence in this case is unusually clear because the inspection cameras were recording the work itself. They captured the passes, the extra photographs that prompted the turn back, and the final tighter turn — leaving investigators with a second-by-second record of a routine inspection task that left no margin once the wing stalled so close to the ground.
