Company mourns survey team

Pilot, technician die in plane crash

Members of Calgary’s aviation community are reeling after learning two men were killed when a plane performing an aerial survey crashed in Kananaskis Country on Wednesday.

The Transportation Safety Board confirmed Thursday the plane belonged to Calgary-based aerial maintenance, mapping and consulting company Aries Aviation International.

Calida Lara, operations centre manager at Aries, said the company is in a state of shock after learning of the crash.

“We’re like family,” Lara said of the small company, which had six aircraft in its fleet before the crash. They’ve been in business since 1995 and this is their first incident, she said.

The company website says its aircraft flew “more than 60,000 hours accident free,” and recorded “more than 18 million line km of survey” prior to the crash.

Cpl. Laurel Scott with the RCMP said the plane’s only occupants were both killed when the plane went down in the area of Rae Glacier Trail around 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday. The bodies of two men were recovered from the crash scene by Kananaskis Public Safety officers on Wednesday evening, and Chris Krepski, spokesman with the Transportation Safety Board, said the deceased were a pilot and survey technician.

Lara said the pilot was a member of the Aries staff, and Postmedia has learned the technician was an employee of Eagle Mapping out of Port Coquitlam, B.C.

Spokespeople from both Aries and Eagle said they will not be releasing the names of the deceased out of respect for the family members.

“We want to give our deepest condolences to the families,” Lara said.

Krepski said the Piper PA-31 Navajo aircraft took off from Penticton, B.C., on Wednesday on its way to the Springbank Airport just west of Calgary.

Cpl. Chris Kosack with the Kananaskis RCMP said bystanders witnessed the plane going down in the area of Rae Glacier Trail, about 100 kilometres southwest of Calgary around 1:30 p.m.

“(The plane) did hit the mountain known as Mount Rae and then slid down from there,” he said, adding they have gathered multiple witness statements.

Krepski said investigators from Edmonton were deployed to the crash site on Thursday morning.

A Royal Canadian Air Force spokesman said the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre out of Trenton, Ont., received a mayday call followed by the activation of an emergency beacon from the area of Mount Rae.

A CC-130H Hercules aircraft was sent from Winnipeg to search for the crashed plane, which was located sometime before 6 p.m.