Passenger Jumps Out Of Plane Over Northern Canada

April 17, 2009 1:57 a.m. EST

Cambridge Bay, Nunavut (AHN) - A distressed passenger has forced open the door of a small charter plane flying at 23,000 feet over Cambridge Bay in Canada's arctic region of Nunavut and jumped out without a parachute.

Two pilots and a female passenger failed to prevent the 20-year-old Nunavut man from opening the door and leaping out the Beechcraft King Air 200 on Wednesday. The plane was forced to make an emergency landing in an airport in Cambridge Bay, according to police who met the pilots and the passenger on the ground.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police has launched a search and rescue for the missing man.

The plane was en route from Yellowknife to Cambridge Bay, a remote community in western Nunavut, when its pilots radioed for emergency because the male passenger became unruly.

The pilots tried to calm down the man but he opened the exit door and leaped out of the plane.