Witnesses say plane clearly in trouble before high-speed crash
Credit to Author: Jennifer Saltman| Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2019 02:06:48 +0000
GABRIOLA ISLAND — It was at 3:12 p.m. that the twin-engined piston plane first appeared on flight radar trackers as PA – 60-602P AEST, heading north at 345 km/h, 5,400 metres above a remote and uninhabited area just east of Yosemite National Park in eastern California, near the Nevada border.
That was shortly after it lifted off Eastern Sierra Regional Airport in Bishop, Calif., enroute to Nanaimo.
The plane was piloted by Alex Bahlsen, the registered owner of a 1982 Piper Aerostar that matches the description on radar and carries the Canadian markings, C-FQYW.
Around 5:45 p.m., the plane crossed the U.S.-Canada border, descending and heading in the direction of Nanaimo, where it was lining up for an instrument approach to runway 16 at the Nanaimo airport, the Transportation Safety Board said on Wednesday.
Seven minutes later, about 2,000 metres above Duncan, the plane turned north, made a swift series of changes in speed and altitude and curled around the north shore of Gabriola Island.
Ken DeCarle was sitting at a computer in his home on the northern tip of the island, drafting an email, when he heard an aircraft engine. It sounded as though the plane was approaching and then flying away, the engine noise rising and falling.
The flight radar appeared to bear out that pattern. By then the plane had dropped to about 600 metres and a speed near 185 km/h.
DeCarle has worked around airplanes and lives on a flight path, so he’s used to the sound of aircraft engines, but this was different.
“I knew exactly what happened. You could tell the airplane was in trouble on the way down. It sounded like the pilot was trying to regain control,” DeCarle said.
Dec. 11, 2019 – Alex Bahlsen of Mill Bay, B.C. has been identified as the pilot of a plane that crashed on Gabriola yesterday.
Not far away, as she walked between her cottage and house, Randi Lynch heard a roar from overhead. She looked up in time to see a plane flying out of control, doing what appeared to be a roll low in the sky.
The plane disappeared from radar at 6:06 p.m. and Lynch watched it plunge to the earth less than 200 metres from where she stood, and explode on impact.
“It was so fast, like within a minute,” Lynch said, visibly shaken by what she saw. “The sky totally lit up.”
The impact was unlike anything neighbour Rick Mayes had felt.
“My place shook so bad and it was so loud that I thought it was an earthquake,” he said. “I’m serious, this house, I thought it was going over it was that strong.”
Mayes had been on the telephone to a friend who had called to wish him a happy 70th birthday when the crash happened.
“By the time I got out and walked to the gate, it was dead quiet. Never heard a thing.”
The scene of a small plane crash on Gabriola Island, B.C., is shown on Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2019. A plane that one witness describes as crashing in a “huge explosion” that left several people dead in British Columbia has been identified as a twin-engined propeller aircraft.
DeCarle threw on his rubber boots and leather gloves, grabbed a flashlight and took off running down the street. When he rounded the corner on to Decourcy Drive, he saw flames flickering in a small, heavily wooded park about 150 metres away.
He found an opening in the trees and followed the 30-metre-long path of debris — metal, plastic, seat cushions — and twin trails of flame toward the main fire, getting as close as he could.
“I was looking on both sides and watching where I was going, of course, looking for people. I called out, ‘Hello, hello! Is anybody there?’ Just in case,” he said. “Just nothing, bits of debris everywhere. It hit really hard, just went to pieces.”
DeCarle spent a few minutes at the crash site looking, unsuccessfully, for survivors before emerging to find first responders had arrived.
“After being in there for five minutes, you realize nobody could have survived this.”
RCMP officers and members from the coroner’s office walk into the dense woods near the scene of a small plane crash on Gabriola Island, B.C., Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2019.
Chief Will Sprogis of the Gabriola Volunteer Fire Department made it to the crash site six minutes after his pager went off. Sprogis found the tail section and gave the RCMP its identifying information. He found other debris, engine parts and propellers, scattered in an area the size of a tennis court, but located no survivors.
It took 10 minutes for firefighters to extinguish the flames with foam. In the end, 32 of the department’s 38 firefighters responded to the crash.
The plane had hit the ground about 30 metres from the road. Police blocked off a few hundred metres of the road, and strung yellow tape to block people from entering along the rocky shore.
Investigators from the Transportation Safety Board arrived shortly after noon on Wednesday.
This screen shot from flightradar24.com shows the speed and altitude of the plane.
The B.C. Coroners Service said it was notified of multiple fatalities. Specialists with the service, along with members of the TSB and RCMP, are gathering information from the scene to determine the identities of those who died. Confirmation of the number of fatalities will happen after family members of the deceased have been notified, and that could take several days, according to a news release from the service.
Dave Holme said he saw the plane nosedive in an immense explosion, then ran into the bushes to see if anyone was alive.
“I was probably within, I’d have to say, five feet of the fuselage … and just fire all around me, the ground was literally on fire.
“I saw the rear end of the plane sticking out of the ground … I couldn’t see any wings. Part of the motor was on one part of the property and the other part of the motor was over on the other side of the property. It hit with such force, it just disintegrated the plane.”
-with files from Nick Eagland and The Canadian Press.
An investigator takes photos near the scene of a small plane crash on Gabriola Island, B.C., Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2019.
Gabriola Island where plane crashed Tuesday evening.
RCMP officers put up police tape near the scene of a small plane crash on Gabriola Island, B.C., Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2019.
-with files from Tiffany Crawford, The Canadian Press and The Times Colonist.