The passing of Northern Thunderbird Air co-pilot Matthew Robic, 26, has added another tragic chapter to a plane crash that also took the life of pilot Luc Fortin on Oct. 27.
The two are the only ones to lose their lives in the incident. Nine others - plane passengers and victims on the ground - were also taken to hospital after their Beech King Air 100 went down on Russ Baker Way near Vancouver International Airport. It had just taken off, encountered a mechanical problem and was attempting to return but fell just short of the runway.
"Fifteen minutes into the flight Fortin and Robic noticed a potential problem: an oil indicator light," said the Transportation Safety Board's director of investigations Mark
Clitsome.
He told The Citizen that the investigation was still active so further details would not be provided at this time. He said the same about a Beech King Air 100 that crashed on June 23, 2010 at Jean Lesage International Airport in Quebec City, killing seven people. The preliminary details have some similarities.
"Shortly after take-off the pilot reported engine problems and tried to return to the airport," said the Transportation Safety Board's preliminary report into the incident.
"The aircraft crashed 1.5 nautical miles north of the airport on Notre Dame Avenue. The aircraft sustained post-impact fire and was destroyed."
According to Northern Thunderbird Air's general manager Bill Hesse, the investigation into this latest crash has plenty of information to analyze. He was confident there would be some answers as to why the Prince George company's plane went down with no prior history of mechanical issues.
"It is an absolutely complete look at everything: our policy and procedures manual, pilot training records, dispatch logs, maintenance records, cockpit recorder, the physical airplane itself, eyewitness accounts, air traffic control information, voice tapes, and, because of where it happened, there is an abundance of information for them to work with but that also means there is a lot of information to sift through, and it is never a quick procedure."
Hesse said this particular aircraft had been in their fleet since 2002-03 and "was one of our more
trouble-free airplanes."
He explained that whenever machinery has mechanical problems it is "fixed immediately and the aircraft doesn't fly if the issue isn't cleared, but there was no indication that this was a troublesome machine.
"The only thing that is fairly concrete was there was an oil indication problem noticed while in the air and they made note of that and made to return to the airport, and what I can tell you from training or the direction you get from the aircraft manual, that is not usually a critical problem. From here on in it is for the TSB to sort out how we got to this from that."
It is not the first time in the TSB's records that this make and model of airplane has had an incident. However, it is one of the most popular passenger planes in the world, a favourite plane of medivac operators all across Canada, so that also ramps up the statistical probabilities of mechanical issues over time.
"We have 13 different types of incident under TSB classifications," said Clitsome. "For this kind of aircraft we came up with 133 incidents over the past 20 years, but that is everything from flat tires to fatal crashes."
TSB officials and The Citizen sifted through the records and noted that Northern Thunderbird Air itself had a past crash involving the same kind of plane, this incident in November 1995 at the small airstrip at Mosque about 270 kilometres northwest of the city. It was attributed to the pilot receiving incorrect information about snow on the runway, and skidding during the landing. No one was injured. Most incidents involving the Beach King Air 100 were mundane or caused by human error. Of the most serious ones, most pertained to problems with the landing gear but again most were immediately seen by the TSB to be human errors not mechanical malfunctions.
There were exceptions. A 1999 crash in Moskoka, Ontario injured two when it clipped trees after a sudden nosedive near the airport. No cause was specified in the report, although it was noted that there were no indicators of a problem prior to the crash.
A flight at Val d'Or, Quebec
experienced smoke and depressurization in the cabin during a 2008 flight. No problem was ever found, despite an inspection upon its safe landing. Little was noted of an incident near Edmonton in 1995 during which some of the plane's cowling came loose during flight and fell off, but again it landed safely.
A violent crash scattered debris over almost 500 feet when a flight with five aboard went down shortly after takeoff in 1999 at Thunder Bay.
There were only minor injuries but the cause was not specified in the TSB report.
Injuries were sustained in a crash near God's Lake Narrows, Manitoba in 2008. A fire in the cockpit caused the crash shortly after takeoff.
As well, there was a fire in the cockpit of a flight in 2005 near Greenwood, Nova Scotia. No injuries resulted. There was a false fire alarm on the left engine aboard a flight from Vernon to Abbotsford in 2005. No source could be found for the problem, but there was no actual fire.
There were no revelations of cause in notes about crashes at Kirby Lake, Ont. that killed one and injured nine, and another at Chapleau, Ont. that killed four, and a 2007 crash that killed one and injured two more during a night landing at Sandy Bay, Sask.
The Citizen will report any new information about the Northern Thunderbird Air crash as it becomes available.
