Three miners, pilot dead in helicopter crash

KatieMercer, The Province

Published: Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Mining workerswatched as a helicopter carrying a pilot and three co-workers crashed about 150kilometres northeast of Prince Rupert Wednesday. "Seeing a helicopter godown with your workmates on board is never a good thing, so they're taking ifvery hard," said Gary Schellenberg, president of Coast Mountain GeologicalLtd., the company that employed one of the men who died in the tragedy. "Theydidn't see it crash but they noticed it was having trouble from a ways off."Fourmen are dead after the chartered helicopter went down near the former miningtown of Alice Arm and overturned in the Kitsault River at about 7 a.m.Wednesday. "We regret to say our rescue technicians have confirmed allfour occupants are deceased. They were found at the crash site," said aspokeswoman for the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre (JRCC), 2nd Lieut. JillStrelieff. Strelieff said they received a call around 8 a.m. from the B.C.Ambulance Service that the helicopter was upside down in the river.A Cormoranthelicopter and Buffalo aircraft were dispatched to the scene and two rescuetechnicians parachuted into the crash site, she said. "It's a veryisolated, difficult area terrain-wise. Very steep. It's a very difficult areato get into. There are a lot of gorges. Fortunately the Canadian Forces and theJRCC have been able to work with the United States Coast Guard and theRCMP," Strelieff said.

The flight was achartered Hughes MD 500 helicopter, owned and operated by Prism Helicopters inPitt Meadows. It had been chartered by Vancouver-based Bravo Venture Group, amining exploration company.

Bravo Venture Groupchairman Lawrence Page said the helicopter transported two shifts of minersfrom a nearby camp to a drill site, known as Homestake Ridge, daily since 2003.

The site, which isonly accessible by helicopter, employs two shifts of miners, of which 20 arealways on site. The flight had left the base camp at about 7 a.m. and washeading to the site when it crashed, killing the pilot, two drillers and alogistics employee from Coast Mountain Geological Ltd. who were on board, saidPage." I can only assume that the helicopter was flying them in for thestart of their shift," said Page. "It's a tremendous tragedy, thesefolks are a pretty close family, they live and work together. A lot of themhave worked together since the inception of the operation in 2003."Pagesaid he could not confirm the names of the miners, pending the notification oftheir families. Schellenberg also wouldn't disclose the identity of hiscompany's deceased employee, but said he had worked in logistics seasonally fortwo years. He was in his early 50s and had children, who were notified earlyWednesday and are said to be taking the news quite hard.The family of thedeceased pilot has also been notified, said Prism president Dave Zall. He saidit was still too early to know what caused the helicopter to crash.Investigators with the Transportation Safety Board were en route to the crashsite Wednesday.

Const. Krista Vrolyk,spokeswoman for Prince Rupert RCMP, said that the bodies of all four of thedeceased have been recovered and were being transported out of the remote areaWednesday afternoon. Prince Rupert is located on the central west coast ofB.C., about 715 kilometres west of Prince George and just north of the SkeenaRiver.