The Lockheed L-188 Electra passenger plane took off from Edmonton Airport toward Rea Point Airfield on Melville Island in the Canadian Arctic.

As the plane was approaching the airfield, it went down short of the runway, hitting the icy surface of the Byam Channel and then falling through the ice.

From 29 December 1969 the aircraft with its new registration CF-PAB belonged to the fleet of International Jetair Ltd. and from March 1970 to Panarctic Oils.

When the aircraft was about 150 miles (240 km) from Rea Point, the crew made radio contact with the landing site.

When they were at a distance of about 17 miles (27 km) from Rea Point Airfield, the pilots maintained an altitude of 2,000 feet (610 m) for 1 minute and 45 seconds before lowering the aircraft further until it was at an altitude of about 875 feet (267 m) at a distance of 6 miles (9.7 km) from the airfield.

The crew contacted the airfield at Rea Point and informed them of their DME distance on the final approach.

Both barometric altimeters in the cockpit were tuned to the local air pressure of the target airfield of 29.91 inches of mercury (101.3 kPa).

The captain, on the other hand, believed that the aircraft was above a layer of clouds, so he reduced the thrust and pushed the control horn forward, causing significant g-forces to act on the plane.

[1][3] Only the first officer, David Wayne Hatton, and the flight engineer, Garry Douglas Weyman, survived the accident.

There was no off-airport vehicle on standby, and emergency response following the loss of radio contact with the aircraft was slow to be initiated.

[3] In a 4 November 1974 article in the Medicine Hat News, the crash site in the Arctic Ocean was described as the "worst place for an (aviation) accident" in icy conditions.

[4] The island is located about 700 kilometres (430 mi) from the Canadian mainland, within a radius of hundreds of kilometers there are only Arctic Ocean and polar steppe, most areas are uninhabited, professional medical infrastructure was non-existent in the region, and the nearest major cities with professionally equipped trauma clinics are thousands of kilometers away.

The weakened accident victims, with their potentially survivable injuries, were exposed to extreme cold and rapid first aid could hardly be provided.