An improperly assembled oil filter is being identified as the cause of a Canadian Snowbirds Jet to crash in Fort St John BC last August.

The Snowbirds had just finished performances at the air show in that community, and the plane was being ferried back to Moose Jaw, the home base of the air demonstration team.

The pilot reported no problems on take off, until the landing gear was retracted. That’s when the pilot heard a loud noise, and the Tudor Jet began to quickly slow down.

The pilot redeployed the landing gear in an attempt to land, but the gear didn’t have sufficient time to recycle, and the plane made a belly landing on the last couple of hundred feet of runway. The plane went into a fence at the end of the runway and came to a stop. The pilot was not injured, and exited the aircraft.

After this initial report, the investigation will now focus on the oil filter, and whether is was human error that caused it to fail.