Weather doubted as cause of crash

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/09/2003 (8209 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

INVESTIGATORS combing through the wreckage of a plane crash that killed eight people outside Summer Beaver First Nation have no idea yet what brought it down, but the airline doubts weather was a significant factor.

“We are considering everything right now,” Transportation Safety Board spokesman John Cottreau said. “No possible rock is going to be left uninvestigated.”

Eric Kudaka, a spokesman for first nation-owned Wasaya Airways, said his company has no theories about what might have sent the plane plummeting straight down into the bush 10 kilometres outside the community Thursday night.

“Not a clue.”

He said people in Summer Beaver, about 500 kilometres north of Thunder Bay, reported intermittent rain that started around the time the plane was spotted approaching the community.

But unless there was an isolated thunderstorm outside the community, weather should not have been a problem for the pilot, Kudaka said.

The remoteness of another northwestern Ontario crash site, where a B.C. couple was killed instantly Thursday night, is also hampering that investigation.

James and Rachel Hall of Nanaimo were fulfilling a life-long dream of cross-country flight when their Cessna 172 slammed into a heavily forested area about 100 kilometres west of Thunder Bay.

The bodies of the victims, both aged 69, were removed from the area yesterday.

In Summer Beaver, some community leaders will be brought out to the crash site today, suggesting that bodies might be removed today, Kudaka said.

Seven residents of the reserve and the pilot of Wasaya Airways flight 125 were killed instantly when their 11-seater Cessna Grand Caravan crashed.

The wreckage is in a remote, wooded area that is difficult to access except by helicopter.

More than 1,000 family members, friends and crisis counsellors have descended on the tiny community of Summer Beaver to help residents cope with the tragic death of seven of their residents.

“The support has been just great,” said Chief Roger Oskineegish. “People here are in a great deal of shock, but it feels good to have all this help.”

The crash site is contained to an area the size of a large car. No trees were knocked down by the plane’s descent.

A Winnipeg bush pilot, who did not want his name published, said a pilot in control of a disabled plane will usually cut a swath through the trees as the plane glides to the ground. The crash scene looks more like an out-of-control plane, which can happen when instruments fail in cloud cover, he said.

TSB records show Wasaya Airways has had only two minor accidents since 1998.

In October of that year, a Wasaya freight plane overran the runway at Kasabonika, Ont., and crashed. The flight crew sustained minor injuries.

In October 1999, a Wasaya Cessna Caravan — like the one involved in Thursday’s incident — crashed into Ranger Lake in Ontario after the pilot veered to avoid a large flock of birds. The pilot, who was alone on the flight, was not seriously injured.

The loss of so many people from one small reserve is compounded by the fact that many on the doomed plane were community leaders in Summer Beaver.

Killed in the crash were deputy chief Lawrence Yellowhead; band councillors Richard Beaver and Mike Wabasse; the band’s chief land negotiator, Leonard Sugarhead; heavy equipment operator Rudy Neshinapaise; Violet Wapoose and her seven-year-old grandson, Nathan Wapoose; and the pilot, Jonathan Hulls. The victims range in age from seven to 64.

The flight left Pickle Lake en route to Summer Beaver around 7:30 p.m. Thursday. Residents of the community saw the plane in the darkness, but it did not land as scheduled at 8:30 p.m. A military search and rescue team from the 435 Transport and Rescue Squadron was called in to search. The team was able to locate the burning wreckage of the plane around 2 a.m. Friday.

The B.C. couple killed in the other crash had made a pit stop at St. Andrew’s Airport Thursday afternoon before they took off for Thunder Bay shortly after 5 p.m.

They were expected to arrive at 8:46 p.m. in the northwestern Ontario city, where they planned to visit James’s brother.

The plane never arrived. Military search and rescue personnel were called in from Trenton, Ont., late Thursday night to look for them.

The wreckage of the Halls’ plane was discovered early Friday morning after a weak signal was detected from the aircraft’s emergency locator transmitter.

The Ontario Provincial Police and the Transportation Safety Board were able to gain access to the crash site late Friday after volunteer firefighters broke a trail through 300 metres of bush.

The Halls had planned all summer for their lengthy plane trip, said their son, Robert, 42.

“It was to be a month-long holiday,” he said from his parents’ home, where the couple’s three children and four grandchildren are gathered to grieve and plan the couple’s funerals. “Ironically, they waited to September to go because they wanted to wait for better weather conditions. Dad was concerned about thunderstorms.”

James Hall, a retired logging contractor, was an avid flyer who first got his licence in 1955. After retirement, James Hall retested for his wings in 1995 and flew regularly, sometimes on long cross-country trips. His wife, Rachel, was a school teacher who worked as a substitute after retirement from full-time teaching and was an active member of her church and community.

Robert Hall said his father was a stickler for safety and took great pains to ensure his privately owned plane was in good condition and that weather in his flight path was good.

At the time of the crash, weather reports were calling for some scattered showers and low cloud in the area. But Robert Hall said a cousin living near Thunder Bay told him a freak band of heavy rain and violent thunderstorms went through the area Thursday night, possibly bringing the small plane down.

Robert Hall said the couple’s children are taking comfort in the fact that their parents died doing something they loved to do.

“They lived to the fullest,” he said. “They never sat still. This was their passion.”

The Transportation Safety Board continues to investigate the crash.

leah.janzen@freepress.mb.ca

helen.fallding@freepress.mb.ca

— With files from Canadian Press 4