Gn ee OY Crash at Bronson Creek Close call for — freighter crew Three Trans Provincial Air- lines crew members would have needed all their skills, expertise and quick thinking to save their lives had the skidding Bristol Freighter they were landing stopped any closer to the brush fire burning just meters away from the plane carrying 11,000 pounds of jet fuel. . ‘*Had the fuel tanks ruptured, or the heat of the engine or fuel fumes ignited, there would have been a fire’? Wayne LeBeau said the day following the inci- dent. ‘It gave us very great in- centive to leave the airplane quickly,’’ the 22~year veteran pilot commented. LeBeau and Don Vienneau ex- ited through the escape hatch above the cockpit, while Al Ross used a side window. “I think it took Don about three seconds to make it from his seat to the end of the wing. And as you can see from the picture, it wasn’t far to jump to the ground.”’ The airplane normally towers high above the ground, its cockpit located on top of the massive freight area. This design was also instrumental in making the accident merely ‘‘an unfor- tunate occurrence.’’ ‘‘The cockpit remained totally intact — not even a piece of glass was broken, ‘‘That’s what I like about the Freighter — that high | cockpit,’’ LeBeau said. - The Freighter was completing a 100-kilometer eastward trip from Wrangell, Alaska, with a load of 1,600 U.S. gallons of jet fuel, to Bronson Creek, a min- ing camp about 275 km. north- west of Terrace. Upon landing, a sudden strong gust of wind pulled the fully loaded plane in- to a left turn and then a sideways skid, only stopping when it hit a gravel pile about two meters short of a pile of stumps and branches burning beside the landing strip. “After that, the airplane just disintegrated, folded in on itself,"’ LeBeau said. A cater- pillar was immediately on the scene to clear the smoking brush pile away from the crumpled plane. LeBeau said that although the entire incident lasted only a few seconds, with the crew moving quickly to shut down the machine and leave the cockpit, he remembers it as if it occurred in slow motion. ‘‘You don’t have time to get scared in a situation like that — you’re too. busy. After an hour or two, then it sets in.’? The men are understandably shaken from the experience, but no one was hurt. The Bristol Freighter was well-liked by TPA pilots. The company’s two Freighters were purchased from a firm in New Zealand in September, and are worth close to half a million dolirs each. Only a handful of these huge workplanes are flying around the world, and one of them is now definitely good only for salvage parts. TPA owner Gene Storey said, ‘*The biggest problem is broken hearts and broken egos — it could have been much worse. We just have to get organized to try to get another Bristol.”? The plane was fully insured. Chief pilot Jim.Soden said the Cana- dian Aviation Safety Board flew up to Bronson Creek the follow- ing morning to start their in- vestigation. Storey and LeBeau explained the purpose was not to assien any blame, but to ex- amine the plane, discover exact- ly what happened, and make recommendations about how such incidents might be avoided © in the future. : We can all breathe a sigh of relief that last Tuesday morning, Wayne LeBeau was snapping pictures five minutes after the crash, with A! Ross and Don Vienneau, all on the ground safe and unhurt. Terrace Review — Wednesday, June 29, 1988 21 The top escape hatch and the helght of the cockpit At the site of an airplane crash north of Terrace last week, smoke from the hastily moved burning brush pile is still evident in this picture, snapped just minutes after the crew exited the plane fully loaded with jet fuel. photo by Wayne LeBeau saved the crew from harm when this Bristol Freighter skidded Photo by Wayne LeBeau - City backs university - Terrace city council has decid- ed to support the concept of a northern university as proposed by the Interior University Socie- ty. Previous concerns for the future of Northwest Community College have been answered, and council feels the society is now moving in the right direc- tion and needs the support. Concern for the future of NWCC was shared by many in the Terrace area, but the oppor- tunity to meet with Murray Sadler, the society president, at the recent North Central Municipal Association Conven- tion in Kitimat dispelled those fears. Alderman Ruth Hallock said she was ‘‘sold’’. And according to Sadler, the time for action is now. The only alternative is to continue to use services available in the lower mainland and watch as a fourth B.C.. university is built in the Okanagan. “Expectation predicts the nature of fulfillment,’ says Sadler. ‘‘Expect nothing — get nothing. Expect the next univer- sity to be located in Northern B.C. and it will be located in Northern B.C, We have a win- dow of opportunity to convince Victoria that we, in the resource- rich north, need a university. “If we fail to grasp this op- portunity, we will have no right to complain five, 10 or 20 years hence, that the needs of North- erners afte ignored by govern- ment,” - - upon landing in Bronson Creoek.. /