Pacific Coastal crash
Five people have been confirmed dead after an amphibious airplane with seven people on board crashed shortly after takeoff near Port Hardy, 500 kilometres north of Victoria, Sunday morning.
Two survivors were found after one of them who was relatively unhurt text-messaged a friend, who passed it on to the Victoria Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre.
Four of the dead are employees of Seaspan International Ltd., the marine services company confirmed late Sunday.
We regret to advise that we have received confirmation ... that four Seaspan employees perished in today's plane crash," said Kelly Francis, the company's communications co-ordinator, in a press statement.
"We offer our deepest sympathies to the families."
Text messages from one of the survivors were crucial in helping crews locate the crash site amid the rugged terrain, said Lt.-Cmdr. Gerry Pash of the Joint Rescue centre. "With the rescue beacon destroyed in the crash, it was very important."
The man and another passenger, who suffered some injuries, were taken to St. Joseph's General Hospital in Comox. Their names have not been released.
The Pacific Coastal Airlines amphibious plane left Port Hardy on the east coast of Vancouver Island at 7 a.m. Sunday with six passengers and a pilot. The Grumman Goose was en route to Chamiss Bay, a 20-minute flight.
The passengers included crew for Seaspan, who were being flown into a remote logging site to load barges for transport.
Pash said the plane went down southwest of Port Hardy about 10 minutes after takeoff. Pacific Coast conducted its own search before reporting the plane missing to the Joint Rescue centre at 10 a.m.
A Cormorant helicopter and a Buffalo fixed-wing aircraft from CFB Comox began searching for the plane on the route between Port Hardy and Chamiss Bay.
Within a few hours, the centre received a call from a man claiming he had been phoned by a crash survivor.
"We tried to call that cell phone back and met with no response," Pash said.
The survivor's phone was apparently unable to receive calls. However it could send text messages to the friend, who continued passing information along to rescue officials throughout the afternoon, Pash said.
Because there was no signal from the plane's electronic locator transmitter, rescue crews used cell phone towers to try and pinpoint where the text messages were coming from.
"He can see the search and rescue planes but we can't find him," Pash said Sunday afternoon. "It's incredibly frustrating."
The survivors were reportedly found near a mountain top. However, the area's thick foliage and rugged terrain made spotting them very difficult, he said.
Pash was not sure whether this is the first rescue to rely primarily on text messages, but said it was definitely unusual for the centre.
"To have someone at the crash site, texting us as it's happening, is beyond the pale," he said.
© Vancouver Sun 2008