AE a eee r pemenn armar rene ts rs = .

- Search _—

smoke from a fire or emergency
flares. If nothing is found, then the
ground is covered more intensely.
The topography of mountains
thakes a grid useless. Instead, the
search aircraft fly concentric alti-
tude loops around the contours

of the mountains. Capt. Macdon-
nell’s Buffalo begins an extended
search pass 500 feet above the
upper slopes of Mt. Weber, and the
spotters lean intently into the
plexiglass bubbles. The men are

rotated every 30 minutes in recog. -

nition of the eyestrain inflicted by
the uniform landscape of treed,
snowy slopes extending in every
direction.

At one point as the Buffalo
growled slowly up a narrowing
declivity on the mountain’s flank,
8 flight crew member remarked, "I
wouldn’t want to come up here
and have to turn around."

It's a difficult search. "Sight-
ings”, people reporting the sound
of an aircraft passing overhead,

Continued from page Aa

were followed up without result by
the search squadron, There were
other propeller aircraft in the area

at the time, and it takes an experi-

enced ear to distinguish a Navajo
from a DC-3. Neubacher called
TransProvincial once on the com-
pany radio frequency, 10 minutes
after he was off Bronson Creek.
Local pilots have regular VFR
(Visual Flight Rules) routes they
use between Bronson Creek and
Terrace, but the adverse weather at
the time of the flight may have
forced Neubacher to deviate from
the normal route. No one knows
how far he flew before the airplane
went down. It was a white aircraft,
and the ground is covered with
snow.

"When an airplane goes down in
mountainous terrain, it’s a very,
very, very serious situation," said
one 12-year veteran search pilot.

"You don’t just decide, ’Well, the

weather’s too much and [ think I'll
land here’."

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———_P ERFORMANCE=S>

y

On Friday afternoon the weather

.was very much on Capt. Macdon-

nell’s mind as well. He requested
briefings every few minutes, and
after less than an hour of searching
Mt. Weber at just more than
treetop level, the control centre in
Terrace calls everyone back.
Retuming westward up the

Skeena valley under a low ceiling .
of wet cloud, Macdonnell gets as §

far as Pitman before the weather
gets too low. He heels the Buffalo
around and heads for Smithers.
Macdonnell’s earlier remark, "I
like working my way into the
weather," takes on a sudden
clarity. In going eastward the flight
had gone ahead of weather coming
in from the west, allowing Terrace
to close in behind it. The navigator
files a new flight plan for an in-
strument flight from Smithers to
Terrace, with Prince George as an
alternate. Over Smithers, Macdon-
nell requests another Terrace
weather advisory. "If it’s going
down I’m going in right here," he

‘Says. The weather in Terrace,
however, is holding,

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| Regional

Terrace Review — Wednesday, October 31 , 1990 AS

Three of these DeHavilland Buffalo aircraft are among an

armada of flying searchers looking for Terrace piiot Max
Neubacher and his passengers in the hostile mountains north

of Terrace.

The Buffalo tilts back and begins
climbing to an instrument-guided
path, punching into the centre of a
seemingly endless cloud. At
10,000 feet the SAR tech breaks
out disposable oxygen masks,
peckaged in flat, clear plastic like
take-out food cutlery. He plugs
clear plastic tubes into valves
recessed into the bulkhead, and
shows the spotters how to bend the

| soft metal nosepiece into the right
g shape. Outside the view is so

uniformly featureless that it is
difficult to tell which direction the
light is coming from and the
amber engine cowlings look like
cutouts pasted on grey cardboard.
The engines drone hypnotically as
ihe Buffalo levels out.

Half an hour later the navigator
begins calling out altitudes and
radio navigation fixes, then fan
markers and corresponding alti-
tudes through the long, devious,
shuttling approach to the Terrace
airport. Pellets of snow fly past the

suspended engine cowlings, and
the airplane breaks through the
bottom layer of cloud and into
sight of the runway at 2,200 feet.

The flight was out for nearly four
hours, with just over an hour of
actual search time. The crew is
tired, quiet and discouraged.

"Now you've got something to
write about," one of the SAR techs
says. "You can write about the
shitty weather we have to fly
around in.”

One by one the crew drop off the
ramp at the rear of the Buffalo
onto the concrete and troop back
to the Air Cadet building. Bluster-
-ing winds whip a cold rain out of
the clouds, bringing thoughts of
dinner and a warm place out of the
weather. And thoughts of the next
day’s search, of four people who
may be waiting the night out on a
remote and snowy mountain slope,
with the wind searching like a
predator, straining to hear the
friendly sound of distant engines,

Regional district
ratifies new
shames agreement

The board of directors of the
District of Kitimat-
Stikine has approved an new re-
payment schedule for the Shames
Mountain Ski Corporation
$313,650 debt. In addition, they
will also be signing a priority
agreement giving the province first
call on the collection of a
$501,395 Tourist Industry Deve-
lopment Subsidiary Agreement.

Under the new repayment sche-
dule, interest has been set at 10
percent and will commence Jan. 1,
1991. The first interest payment of
$31,365 will be added to the prin-
cipal on Jan. 1, 1992 and the cor-
poration will pay the regional
district interest in the amount of
$34,502 on the first day of January
in 1993, 1994 and 1995, Beginning
in 1996, the corporation will repay
10 percent of the principal
($34,502) and interest until the
debt is retired in the year 2005.
The total amount repaid, inctuding
interest, will be $638,283.

A final term in the agreement
affects dividends on common or
preferred shares of the corporation.
No dividends will be declared until
Dec. 15, 1995, and after that date,
until the debt is retired, the cor-
poration will pay the regional
district 15 percent of the value of
any dividends declared,

_ In September, there was an indl-

cation that there might be a prob-
lem that would make this agree-
ment impossible. Section 292 of
the Municipal Act prohibits a
board from directly or indirectly
assisting a commercial venture.
This was clarified in an Oct. 12
letter written by D.G Morris, exe-
cutive director of local government
services for the Ministry of Muni-
cipal Affairs.

In his letter, Morris writes:
"While it may be argued that the
Regional District consenting to
move to a secondary position may
be in violation of Section 292(a),
of the Municipal Act, we are of
the opinion that the benefits to the
Regional District by such action
must also be considered. A review
of the circumstances would indi-
cate that an injection of Provincial
funds at this time may be critical
to the ultimate survival of the
project. We would therefore be
prepared to support the position
that the Regional District's hand is
in fact strengthened by signing the
priority agreement and allowing an
additional infusion of funds under
the Tourist Industry Development
Subsidiary Agreement."

The first day of skiing at Shames
is scheduled for Dec. 15 this year,
and it would appear that the final
hurdle in realizing that date has
how been cleared,