Wasaya Flight Missing (Caravan)
 

(Hopefully not another Caravan icing incident...)


THUNDER BAY --- Search and rescue crews have been dispatched to determine the fate of a missing Wasaya Airways cargo plane.

Wasaya's Caravan aircraft Flight 127 left Pickle Lake Friday morning en route to Wapekeka First Nation. It was deemed overdue at 9:21 a.m. and has not since been in radio contact.

In a release, Wasaya's public relations specialist Sharon Smith-Baxter said the company will provide an update on the situation at 3 p.m.

Just in:

Search and rescue may have located missing Wasaya flight

More details from: Search and rescue may have located missing Wasaya flight

Sar techs have reached the wreck, pilot deceased, now lets wait for the TSB report.

News update
 

The pilot of Wasaya Airways Flight 127 that went missing on Friday was found dead by search and rescue crews.

It took searchers several hours to reach the downed plane, with freezing rain hampering efforts on the ground. The plane had been spotted from the air much earlier in the day.

“Upon arrival, crews found the lone occupant of the aircraft, our Capt. Nick Little, not responsive and he could not be resuscitated,” said Sharon Smith-Baxter, in a release issued early Saturday morning.

“Rescue crews are on site now and will remain on site through the night awaiting additional resources to airlift our fallen crew member home.”
The plane, a Cessna 208 Caravan cargo aircraft, was flying between Pickle Lake and Angling Lake. It was overdue and when the pilot did not respond to radio calls, a search party was formed.

The plane left Pickle Lake at 9 a.m. on Friday.

Canadian Forces Search and Rescue began their air reconnaissance at about 1:15 p.m. approximately 28 kilometres northeast of Pickle Lake.

A helicopter was unable to reach the site because of heavy icing. Just before 4 p.m. the OPP launched a ground rescue effort, arriving on foot at about 10:50 p.m.

“We are devastated by the loss of Capt. Little,” said Wasaya president and CEO Michael Rodyniuk. “We have lost a dear friend and valued colleague. Our thoughts are with Nick’s family.”

Nishnawbe-Aski Nation Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler released a statement Saturday morning, expressing his thoughts and prayers for Little's family and friends.

"This loss is exspecially painful during the Christmas season and we will give special thanks this year for all the pilots and crew who provide vital air service to our northern and remote communities," Fiddler said.

Full disclosure, I have only a one hour demo flight in a Caravan on a totally VFR day. Now my question, we were looking to buy a Caravan, {which we didnt finsh up buying} and when the sales person was questioned about flight into known iceing he/she made a statement to the effect that the version with "Weeping fluid" {TKS} system had no problems with moderate iceing and was in fact FIKI certified. Has anyone flown this model and if so how is it in ice? Aircraft sales persons all seem to wear rose tinted specs when it comes to such statements!

Interestingly, Clunck, my previous company just sold one of their older 208s with the traditional ice kit to a Fed Ex feeder in the USA. Rumour has it they (the Fed Ex feeder) didn't want to have anything to do with the TKS, but I don't know the full details.


Condolences to the family and friends of this pilot, and my thoughts to his coworkers - it is never easy to lose a colleague.

Stay safe out there, folks.

I think you were given false info. It's my understanding that every C208 in the FedEx fleet is equipped with the TKS system.

Survey, their dislike could be based on the problem that some retrofits of TKS are having with corosion, or the cost of the fluid, its about $75 US to replenish a small single piston a friend owns. My only experience is flying a DH "Devon", {military Dove} but as this was in NZ there was not a big requirment for the de-ice, in fact our DC3s had the boots removed, they went a bit faster without them,{that is if "fast" can be said about a DC3!} JOs post came up as I was typing my one, JO, is that just the Fed Ex owned aircraft, or does it apply to the sub-contracters as well?

The TSB report on the 2012 icing / loading loss of the Gogal C208B may well be worth a read.

http://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-re...4/a12c0154.pdf

Thanks for that er, scary reading to say the least!"Any ice is too much" was a phrase often heard whilst flying the Beech 18 {our squadron "taxi"} in the RCAF, nothing changes I gues.

Well, not only am I well versed in the way of the Caravan, I have 3000 hours in the things. I've flown the actual aircraft in question.
Caravans and ice. Do a one-eighty right NOW. I don't know about the TKS equipped version. This was not one.
I was flying in the area at the time. My destination (in my King Air 200) was 15 miles from his.
WX was 300 OVC, and had been all morning. He knowingly launched towards 300 foot ceilings! Turned around and stayed VFR impacting the only piece of high(er) ground in the area. Scud running.
Somebody has to send these operators a message. This is way too common.
I never want centre to ask me to try and contact a missing plane that has no right being there, again.
WD

I've got some time on the Hawker with the TKS system. Both Hawker-Siddeley and FSI used to emphasize that the system is anti icing and not de icing, i.e. arm it before you entered icing conditions, since the system was designed to prevent ice accretion instead of removing it once you'd picked it up. Of course there's a world of difference between a van and a 125 when it comes to being able to outclimb icing conditions.

For three days starting very early AM Weds, untill very early AM Friday we were operating in an area of some pretty lousy weather in our twin, a fully de-iced presurized machine which is able to carry a good load of ice without any real decline in performance, but looking outside at the unprotected parts of the airframe and hearing the thuds from chunks hitting the ice shields around the forward baggage doors my thoughts turned to this young man who was flying what to me is an overgrown 172 with a turbine bolted on the nose . Why Lord oh why would a company fly such a machine in such weather as this, simply to deliver "Pop and Chips? "During these three days we delayed one flight for two hours untill the -ZR moved North of our track, then delayed our return to home base by eight hours for a similar reason, my F/O and I will have Christmass with our families, thats way more important than a food run! End of sermon, I dont normally preach, but this nonsense has to stop, Regards, Clunck.