That bright yellow plane that landed on April 14 may have looked like one of the BC Wildfire Service's air tankers of old, but what landed at Penticton's Regional Airport is not a firefighting plane.
What landed in Penticton is instead one of the Royal Canadian Airforce's Search and Rescue fleet aircraft.
The identification on the tail of plane identifies it as a 295 Kingfisher, one of the newer fixed-wing SAR planes the RCAF uses, which are split into 19 Wing Comox, 17 Wing Winnipeg, 8 Wing Trenton, and 14 Wing Greenwood.
Western News reader Derek MacDonald pointed out that the six digit identifier on the tale is split between the 295 for the model and the 508 for the specific plane's identity, which is also on the nose of the plane.
The plane left the airport on April 15, heading towards the south-east of Penticton.
The BC Wildfire Service's fleet of planes that station in Penticton are made up of De Havilland Dash 8 Q400, which replaced the Convair tankers that used to fly out of the airport until 2022.
Those planes only have three-digit identifiers located on their tails and are white and red in colour scheme.
