Wildfire plane crash sparks questions

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This article was published 23/09/2023 (1128 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“Year after year, teams of courageous individuals put themselves directly in the path of wildfires, whether from the air or on the ground, to protect land, property, animals, and citizens. We the protected owe these individuals an unpayable debt for taking on such perilous work for the common good.”

This statement by Vancouver author Frances Peck describes the impetus for her second novel. It’s an absorbing, intense contemporary tale about a fatal airtanker crash amid a rural B.C. wildfire.

Rife with loss, love and secrets, the story deals with the aftermath of the crash and its impact on the friends, colleagues, and family of the deceased pilot. In terms of its portrayal of the emotional toll of firefighting, the novel brings to mind Russell Wangersky’s 2009 award-winning memoir Burning Down the House.

Peck is an author with a penchant for writing about disasters set in her home city. Her debut novel The Broken Places tells of an earthquake during which several Vancouverites of different social classes take shelter in an oceanfront home amid the chaos. The novel was named a 2022 Globe and Mail best book.

At the outset of Uncontrolled Flight it is July 2013, and everyone who knew pilot Rafe Mackie is flummoxed by the news of his untimely death. He was an ace pilot with an impeccable 20-year flying record who preferred flying airtankers to commercial planes.

During the probe, the investigators soon dismiss mechanical difficulties as the cause, then dig deeper to interview people close to Rafe.

Among them is his colleague Will. For a decade, he served as Rafe’s “bird dog” pilot, guiding the airtanker to the exact dropping point for the flame retardant. Unfortunately Will witnessed the crash; as a result, he suffers from PTSD. So does Rafe’s widow, Sharon.

Eventually the investigators discover a surprising detail that astounds Will. As a result, the plot thickens.

Narrated in the alternating voices of Will, Sharon and Nathalie, an investigator, the story hopscotches back and forth in time over the course of six months. The narrative is written in 42 short chapters of sinuous, elastic prose.

The first section deals with the initial reactions of the characters to Rafe’s unexpected fate, the second part chronicles various steps in the investigation process, and the third segment reveals details about Rafe’s final flight and includes some backstory.

The title Uncontrolled Flight refers to the allure of flying as experienced by pilots: In Peck’s words, “to be part of a force so powerful, intoxicating, and potentially uncontrollable, to let it lift you high above the ordinary world, to say yes to the freedom of it and also the danger — that’s what makes life worth living. All you can do is give yourself over to it, body and soul.”

Peck does so many things well in this thoroughly researched novel — the well-drawn albeit flawed characters, the crisp dialogue, the tension-filled plot. It’s an edifying and timely story that undoubtedly will linger in the minds of many readers.

Bev Sandell Greenberg is a Winnipeg writer and editor.