On 23 January 2024, Northwestern Air Flight 738, a British Aerospace Jetstream, was chartered by the Rio Tinto Group to carry mine workers from Fort Smith to the Diavik Diamond Mine, located around 300 km (190 mi) northeast of Yellowknife. The aircraft crashed shortly after takeoff, 1,200 m (3,900 ft) from the runway near Fort Smith Airport, killing six of the seven passengers and crew. The only survivor was taken to the Fort Smith Health Centre and was later airlifted to the Stanton Territorial Hospital in Yellowknife for further treatment.

The aircraft involved was a BAe-3212 Jetstream Super 31, MSN 929, registered as C-FNAA, manufactured by British Aerospace in 1991. The aircraft had suffered a previous incident on 1 April 2019 where it departed the runway while landing at Fort Chipewyan, Canada.

Shortly after taking off from runway 30, the aircraft reached a maximum altitude of 140 feet and ground speed of 160 knots, then entered into a descent from which it did not recover, hitting trees around 938 m from the runway and crashed 1265 m from the end of the runway and 98 m left of the center-line. After the crash, an extensive post-crash fire broke out, which destroyed 80% of the wreckage. The sole survivor was ejected from the aircraft during the accident sequence and suffered minor injuries.

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada sent a team, which included lead investigator Jeremy Warkentin to investigate the cause of the crash. Both of the aircraft's CVR and FDR have been recovered. A preliminary report was released sometime in April 2024, which confirmed what was known and revealed what the conditions were at the time the accident aircraft attempted to takeoff.