College flight instructors mourned

TWO DEAD

BILL GRAVELAND Calgary’s Mount Royal University has grounded its aviation fleet after a crash west of the city killed two popular flight instructors.

“Mount Royal grieves the tragic loss of two aviation instructors,” university president David Docherty said at a news conference Tuesday.

“At a difficult time, our sincerest condolences, first and foremost, go to the families of those instructors.”

The university identified one of the deceased as Jeffrey Bird, a pilot instructor with the Royal Canadian Air Force at Canadian Forces Base Moose Jaw in Saskatchewan prior to joining Mount Royal as an instructor.

Before that, Bird was a helicopter pilot in Edmonton with 408 Squadron.

Bird’s family is heartbroken, Docherty said.

He said the family of the other flight instructor had not given the university permission to release his name.

RCMP said the crash occurred Monday afternoon east of Highway 40, northwest of Cochrane. The accident was witnessed by another aircraft and reported to authorities at about 5 p.m.

RCMP spokesman Cpl. Curtis Peters said police, an air ambulance, military aircraft and the Calgary police helicopter were part of a major emergency response to the area.

“They discovered the site and unfortunately both of the people on board were killed,” he said.

The university’s two-year aviation program has 60 students and, prior to the accident, had a fleet of five single-engine Cessnas and three twin-engine Technams. The two pilots were flying one of the twin-engine aircraft.

“We’re grounding the fleet temporarily and we will be working with Transport Canada to make sure we’re not putting any plane in the air,” said Docherty.

“We don’t know the cause. It’s too early to say anything definitive but the planes are on the ground right now.”

Docherty said the university planes are in the air 364 days a year and it wasn’t unusual for two pilots to be together in the same plane.

The pilots’ deaths have shaken students in the aviation program. Most showed up for the news conference to show their respect.

“When we found out what happened, myself and about 40 of my friends spent the night crammed into a residence room until two in the morning talking about our favourite memories from these two extraordinary flight instructors,” said Luc Sinal, president of the aviation student executive.

“It was the passion for aviation and the love of flying that brought us towards this program and these instructors only helped bring that passion out and helped us discover the love of flying we had.”

Sinal said the students spent a lot of one-on-one time with the 12 instructors in the cockpit, in the hangar and hanging out at the university.

“They become like family to us.”