Provincial police helicopter crashed while searching for five snowmobilers
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Provincial police helicopter crashed while searching for five snowmobilers
A Sûreté du Québec (SQ) (provincial police) helicopter crashed while searching for five French (i.e. from France) tourists who went missing during a snowmobile expedition on Tuesday night.
The helicopter crashed Wednesday afternoon in the Île Beemer area of Lac St-Jean, where the SQ is conducting its searches.
The SQ said the pilot, who was alone on board, crashed in the water. The pilot suffered non-life-threatening injuries and was taken to hospital for treatment.
The cause of the crash is not yet known, but the SQ said the incident will not interfere with its search operation.
Article
Also, from various news sources, the guide for the 8 snowmobilers (on a lake) died shortly after being brought to a convenience store while awaiting for the ambulance. The clerk said she had never seen someone so covered in ice.
8 people from France were affected and 5 are presumably dead. 3 were released from the hospital and left for Montreal to catch a return flight to France.
The helicopter crashed Wednesday afternoon in the Île Beemer area of Lac St-Jean, where the SQ is conducting its searches.
The SQ said the pilot, who was alone on board, crashed in the water. The pilot suffered non-life-threatening injuries and was taken to hospital for treatment.
The cause of the crash is not yet known, but the SQ said the incident will not interfere with its search operation.
Article
Also, from various news sources, the guide for the 8 snowmobilers (on a lake) died shortly after being brought to a convenience store while awaiting for the ambulance. The clerk said she had never seen someone so covered in ice.
8 people from France were affected and 5 are presumably dead. 3 were released from the hospital and left for Montreal to catch a return flight to France.
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I posted this elsewhere - mostly for a Canadian snowmobilier audience, but anyone operating off the ice should think about the need for a life jacket/PFD.....
'Looks like this one:
https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/232383
Bell 206L-4 C-GSQA, and an injured pilot.
Tourist sledders might not have given their plan a lot of thought, we accept that they are low experience, they perhaps put their faith in a guide, who has also paid with his life. If the guide required the tourist sledders to wear floater suits, they would all be alive today, and the search very much less risky. The news says that four sleds have been found underwater, but not bodies. More risk and cost to find them.
Yes, I've been involved with this. As a firefighter, I searched all afternoon down the hole - sled, but no body. I searched from both my plane, looking straight down, and then in a suit, in our F.D. Zodiac. I flew back the next day to assist the police divers. As I flew downwind to land on the ice (A lake I knew very well, and wearing my floater suit in the plane), I saw the body through the ice, about 500 feet down current from the hole. I marked the spot by throwing a rope bag out the window, and taking bearings. I landed, put on a Fire Department full immersion suit, took an axe, and a rope, and lead two police divers for a walk. I walked right up to the spot, chopped a hole in the ice, and we pulled out the body. He had floated down current. His helmet (which he did think to wear!) was a fine antifriction device against the underside of the lake ice. The police divers told me that I had saved them at least three days diving to grid search that far, and he would have drifted more during that period, and might have sunk. He was floating helmet up, boots down, wrists up, and had stiffened that way. When we put him on the stretcher, we could not get his arms down. He was lying as if reaching for the sky, it was extra sad.
The victim was a retired Toronto police officer - retired only a couple of months, and now drowned. For not wearing a floater suit/life jacket, he was dead, and we invested lots of cost and risk looking for him. It is possible, that had I not seen him from the plane, he would not have been found 'till spring, and we'd rather not discuss the details of how that happens.
Now, the Quebec police have injured a pilot, and lost a helicopter, as well as immense emergency services cost and effort - and four/five bodies are still missing, perhaps never to be found. Seven years before their estates can be settled? - all because they did not wear floater suits.
If you are going to operate anything on the water, liquid or frozen, wear a PFD!!! There's no excuse! They're not hard to buy, not expensive, and are available in the stylish dark colours, which your coolness on the trail requires! The life jacket I was wearing, when I least expected needing it, saved my life. What's the excuse for not wearing one?
Rant not over yet... Just paused for a short while - till next time!
'Looks like this one:
https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/232383
Bell 206L-4 C-GSQA, and an injured pilot.
Tourist sledders might not have given their plan a lot of thought, we accept that they are low experience, they perhaps put their faith in a guide, who has also paid with his life. If the guide required the tourist sledders to wear floater suits, they would all be alive today, and the search very much less risky. The news says that four sleds have been found underwater, but not bodies. More risk and cost to find them.
Yes, I've been involved with this. As a firefighter, I searched all afternoon down the hole - sled, but no body. I searched from both my plane, looking straight down, and then in a suit, in our F.D. Zodiac. I flew back the next day to assist the police divers. As I flew downwind to land on the ice (A lake I knew very well, and wearing my floater suit in the plane), I saw the body through the ice, about 500 feet down current from the hole. I marked the spot by throwing a rope bag out the window, and taking bearings. I landed, put on a Fire Department full immersion suit, took an axe, and a rope, and lead two police divers for a walk. I walked right up to the spot, chopped a hole in the ice, and we pulled out the body. He had floated down current. His helmet (which he did think to wear!) was a fine antifriction device against the underside of the lake ice. The police divers told me that I had saved them at least three days diving to grid search that far, and he would have drifted more during that period, and might have sunk. He was floating helmet up, boots down, wrists up, and had stiffened that way. When we put him on the stretcher, we could not get his arms down. He was lying as if reaching for the sky, it was extra sad.
The victim was a retired Toronto police officer - retired only a couple of months, and now drowned. For not wearing a floater suit/life jacket, he was dead, and we invested lots of cost and risk looking for him. It is possible, that had I not seen him from the plane, he would not have been found 'till spring, and we'd rather not discuss the details of how that happens.
Now, the Quebec police have injured a pilot, and lost a helicopter, as well as immense emergency services cost and effort - and four/five bodies are still missing, perhaps never to be found. Seven years before their estates can be settled? - all because they did not wear floater suits.
If you are going to operate anything on the water, liquid or frozen, wear a PFD!!! There's no excuse! They're not hard to buy, not expensive, and are available in the stylish dark colours, which your coolness on the trail requires! The life jacket I was wearing, when I least expected needing it, saved my life. What's the excuse for not wearing one?
Rant not over yet... Just paused for a short while - till next time!
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Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) released a first photo of the Sûreté du Québec helicopter which crashed on Wednesday during search operations in Lac-Saint-Jean.
In the image, you can see the aircraft, a Bell 206, on the ground on a frozen surface of Lac Saint-Jean.The shock appears to have been strong since the skids are completely detached from the aircraft fuselage. The cockpit was also destroyed as a result of the impact.
According to the TSB, the helicopter had just left the search area for missing snowmobilers and was proceeding to La Tuque airport in Mauricie.
“The pilot suffered serious injuries and was rescued by another helicopter,” added the TSB in its release.
The Transportation Safety Board is continuing its investigation into the crash.
source
