Canadian plane crash site mystery solved

A Canadian plane crash mystery was finally solved after authorities determined when and what exactly happened that led to a hunter coming across a mysterious crash site in the Canadian wilderness.

According to Fox News, a hunter had come across the plane crash site in the wilderness of British Columbia and immediately reported his findings to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).

Investigators with the agency determined initially that the crash likely happened "decades" ago.

Fox News noted:

Officers dispatched to the site of the mysterious crash in Canada's vast wilderness found just the shell of a plane, with no signs of a motor, wings, doors, seats or bodies near the supposed crash site.

Initially, according to a Transport Canada report, investigators determined that while they weren't sure how the plane got to where it was but concluded that the plane had been "destroyed" by a "collision with terrain" in an attempt to understand why it was missing so many critical components.

Adding to the mystery at the time was that the crash wasn't attached to any reports of missing persons or planes.

After presumably a lot of head-scratching, it was finally revealed that Canada’s Civil Air Search and Rescue Association (Casara) came forward and disclosed that they had placed the plane there as a training prop about a year prior.

The group, which often conducts rescue missions in the remote wilderness, said it constructed the simulated crash site for training purposes.

Fred Carey, director general of British Columbia’s provincial air rescue service, gave further details in addition to stating that it was "quite the chore" to get the plane to the remote crash site.

"We like to make it as real as possible for them: smoke, injured people. They love it and we get to treat it like a real downed aircraft," Carey said.

It's also notable that Carey revealed that both local airports and local authorities were notified about the training plane's placement at the time. He indicated that the plane even contained placards with proper phone numbers to call for further information.

Carey said he believes authorities didn't follow protocol in their investigation into the plane crash site.

"There are placards in the wreck and even a phone number to call," he said. "I’m not sure what happened, maybe the placards wore off. But in this case, it doesn’t look like the authorities followed protocol," he said.

It's unclear how much time and resources were used in tracking down the origin of the "plane crash" that stumped government authorities.