Wake from passing plane may have caused Air Canada jet's plunge

MONTREAL — The wake from a passing plane is likely the cause of the sudden descent of an Air Canada Airbus at the edge of U.S. airspace on a flight to Toronto from Victoria, B.C. the Calgary Sun newspaper reported today. Transport Canada investigators are looking at that possibility as they review the incident last Thursday near the Kootenay Mountains in southeastern British Columbia, north of Spokane. The Airbus made an emergency landing in Calgary, and 10 passengers and crew were taken to hospital.

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board is being asked for navigational recordings from the area where the incident occurred, said Real Levasseur, chief of investigations for the Transportation Safety Board of Canada's.

Levasseur said there was a "high probability that an external force may have caused the incident." Wake turbulence from another aircraft could be to blame, but Levasseur would not say what type of plane could have caused it.

"It happened very fast," one unidentified female passenger said at the airport after the jet made its emergency landing. "Our friend was really hurt. ... She flew up and hit the ceiling and went back down."