BLACKFALDS — The pilot who died in a plane crash on Thursday afternoon skillfully avoided nearby houses and businesses, say bystanders.
“He was doing all he could to not hit anybody else,” said Luke Mack. “It was an absolutely heroic move on his part.”
The single engine aerobatic biplane came down around 2:30 p.m. in a narrow field between Boston Pizza and a nearby subdivision off Cottonwood Drive. The crumpled wreckage was less than 50 metres from businesses on side and homes on the other.
“What he managed to do in avoiding the local businesses and the houses was astonishing,” said Mack. “It takes something special to be able to do something like that.”
Nick Terpstra said before the crash the plane veered straight up and then seemed to stall. It had been heading south and then turned east when it went down.
“You could feel it in the ground when he hit,” said Terpstra.
Mack said he heard the impact more than a kilometre away from the crash site.
“It almost sounded like thunder of a sort.”
As soon as the plane hit the ground, construction workers at a nearby site ran over with fire extinguishers. The pilot and lone occupant did not survive the crash.
Blackfalds RCMP said the biplane had flown from Lacombe airport and “was experiencing what witnesses believed to be engine trouble” before it crashed.
No one was injured on the ground. The pilot’s name will not be released, say police.
One of those watching as firefighters and police worked at the crash site said the pilot was a friend, who flew out of the Lacombe Flying Club.
“He was a great guy,” said the emotional man, who did not want to give his name or the pilot’s.
Transportation Safety Board of Canada investigators were headed to the scene and expected to arrive in the late afternoon.
The plane was a Steen Skybolt, which is an amateur-built kit aerobatic plane.
pcowley@www.reddeeradvocate.com