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..

/