The local aviation community is mourning the loss of two of its own today after a small aircraft owned by a flying school crashed near the Springbank Airport and killed two men this morning.
The local aviation community is mourning the loss of two of its own today after a small aircraft owned by a flying school crashed near the Springbank Airport and killed two men this morning.
“This is a small community and it’s very difficult for everybody here, ” said Larry Stock, Springbank Airport’s general manager.
Emergency Medical Services spokesman Stuart Brideaux told media on scene calls began coming in shortly before 10 a.m. about a light aircraft that had crashed just south of Highway 1 and just west of Calaway Park.
Transport Canada's Civil Aviation Daily Occurrence Report says the Piper PA-34-200T, owned and operated by Springbank Air Training College, took off from Runway 17 and crashed shortly afterward one mile south of the airport in a field.
Cochrane resident Hugh Dixon was driving into work when he said he noticed a plane, that had just taken off from the airport, flying quite low.
"It was flying level over the highway fairly low and ... the nose wasn’t tilted up in a takeoff position," Dixon recalled. "I could tell that the plane was ever so slightly losing altitude, so by the time it got down to about 100 feet and it was over the farmer's field, the nose pitched down and it went straight down into the ground.
"I knew the plane was in trouble, just simply because it was losing altitude, but I thought it was just going to land in the field ... I was quite shocked when I saw the nose pitch down. "I honestly thought they were going to get out of it."
Dixon said he saw a burst of flame that lasted for a few seconds, then the fire contained itself to the area around the downed aircraft.
He pulled over on the shoulder of the highway to call 911.
"I did pull over and I wanted to see if I could go help but ... I just couldn’t make my way over. I was on the side of the road for a few minutes, trying to call authorities and just sort of getting over the shock of seeing this event," he said. "I saw some of the emergency vehicles coming over from the Springbank Airport ... they were on their way within a minute or two."
Area resident Anita Robinson was jogging with her miniature black Labrador Bailey at about that same time when she said the dog unexpectedly stopped and alerted her to the possibility that something was wrong.
“I was running my dog and all of a sudden, my dog stopped … and I looked up and all I saw was this big black smoke, ” Robinson recalled. “Then I saw the fire under it. ”
Brideaux said after receiving a number of calls, emergency personnel arrived a short time later to discover the full scope of the situation.
“On EMS and fire arrival, we were eventually able to determine there were two adults deceased, ” he said.
RCMP said the names of the two men will not be released pending notification of next of kin.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada has begun its investigation into the fatal crash.
