Man flown to hospital after powered paraglider crash in northwestern Alberta

Federal transportation investigators were sent to northwestern Alberta this weekend, after a man riding a powered paraglider crashed Friday morning, suffering critical injuries.

Paramedics called Grande Prairie RCMP for help shortly after 8:30 a.m. MT Friday, after responding to calls from witnesses who saw the powered paraglider — a vehicle with a propeller attached to the back that's carried by a parachute — fall into a canola field, an Alberta RCMP spokesperson told CBC News.

A STARS air ambulance was dispatched to the area and flew the rider, a 46-year-old man who lives in the county of Grande Prairie, to the University of Alberta Hospital in Edmonton, an agency spokesperson told CBC News.

The RCMP spokesperson said the man was in critical condition as of Saturday morning.

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB), meanwhile, is sending a "team of investigators" to the crash site in the Grande Prairie area — roughly 400 kilometres northwest of Edmonton — to "gather information and assess" the incident, according to a news release issued Saturday.

The TSB, an independent federal agency, investigates air, marine, pipeline and rail transportation incidents to improve transportation safety. Its investigations do not assign fault, nor determine liability.

This is the second week in a row the agency sent personnel to Alberta. Last week, investigators were sent to the Springbank Airport, just west of Calgary, and Edson, Alta., to examine separate incidents.

An investigator was sent to the airport to examine an "accident involving an amateur-built aircraft," the TSB said in a news release on May 16.

Two days later, the agency said it was sending a team to Edson, about 195 kilometres west of Edmonton, after two Canadian National Railway trains sideswiped each other, derailing several cars.