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‘Part of a second’ could have made difference in plane crash: fly club manager

An experienced pilot says a mid-air collision in Saskatchewan that took the lives of five people probably happened in the blink of an eye.

ST. BRIEUX, Sask. — An experienced pilot says a mid-air collision in Saskatchewan that took the lives of five people probably happened in the blink of an eye.

“It happened so quickly. If you saw them with any amount of warning, you could have avoided it, and when you think about it and the speed they were travelling, a part of a second would have made a difference,” Tom Ray of the Regina Flying Club said Monday.

“Normally it’s see-and-be-seen as far as going into smaller airports like that or flying over a smaller airport, but they were probably coming about 90 degrees. One was northbound, one was eastbound and maybe there was sun in the eyes. Who knows?”

Ray suggested the collision may have been similar to a vehicle being T-boned at an intersection.

“Typically pilots look ... forward where they’re going mostly rather than 90 degrees off to the side.”

Debris from the planes — a Piper PA-28 and a Lake Buccaneer amphibious plane — was scattered on grassy fields and among trees near St. Brieux, northeast of Saskatoon, after the collision Saturday. One of the planes was submerged in water.

The bodies of the victims were recovered Monday.

Police had yet to identify the people killed, but family members confirmed that the three on board the Piper were Denny Loree, Eric Donovan and his 11-year-old son Wade. All lived near Mossleigh, Alta.

An obituary in a Saskatchewan newspaper said Joy and Eric Jackson of Regina were also killed.

“It’s a bit of a shock,” said Ray, who noted that Eric Jackson had just recently earned his pilot’s licence. “The pilot community is kind of a tight group and there was initial shock and sadness (when) . . . we heard he was killed and his wife. It’s sad to see those things happen,” he said.

Transportation Safety Board investigators were on the scene trying to piece together what happened. Board spokesman Peter Hildebrand said the investigation was proving difficult.

“It’s not a matter of just collecting the debris off the field. It’s buried in the water and in the marshy areas, so it depends a lot on what complications could occur and what kind of equipment can we find to go in there and look at it,” Hildebrand explained.

He said both aircraft were severely damaged in the air and when they hit the ground.

“That compound situation complicates the effort to determine just which one was flying in which direction (and) from what angle did they hit each other.”