The Boeing 737-200 of First Air was operating a service from Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, when it struck a hill obscured by clouds near Resolute Bay Airport.

[1][2][3] The subsequent investigation found that a late initiation of the descent, the inadvertent partial disengagement of the autopilot during final approach, a drift in the aircraft compass system and poor communication between the flight crew resulted in the aircraft drifting significantly off course from the final approach path, descending into the ground moments after the crew initiated a go-around.

Reports received shortly after take-off indicated deteriorating weather at Resolute, but the crew agreed that the flight should not divert.

[4] At 11:41, as the crew initiated a go-around, Flight 6560 collided with terrain abeam the runway approximately 1 NM (1.9 km; 1.2 mi) to the east, breaking up into three main sections.

Post-crash investigation found the airport's ILS system to be operating normally, and was in fact used by another aircraft that successfully landed 20 minutes after the crash of Flight 6560.

However, an inadvertent movement of the control column by the captain during the turn onto the final approach track caused the autopilot to disengage from VOR/LOC mode and revert to only maintaining the current heading, resulting in the aircraft drifting out to the right (east) of the runway centreline.

[4] The TSB highlighted how according to First Air's own standard operation procedures, the approach was clearly unstable and should have been aborted at an early stage.

[4][9] The crash of First Air Flight 6560 was dramatized in "Death in the Arctic", a season 14 (2015) episode of the internationally syndicated Canadian TV documentary series Mayday.