Mid-air crash kills 5
EDITOR’S NOTE: In recognition of Canada’s 150th anniversary, The Herald is reprinting historic stories from the South Okanagan focusing on the biggest news story of each year.
AUGUST 21, 1999 – Five people were killed in a mid-air collision over Penticton on Friday.
Witnesses say the two light planes crashed into each other just north of the Penticton Airport at about 11:30 a.m. Both aircraft spiralled while crashing to the ground — one smashing into the parking lot at Okanagan University College and bursting into flames. The other crashed into the work yard of a nearby metal working shop. Although no fire occurred, the bodies of the four occupants, believed to be two men, a woman and a child, were strewn about.
No one on the ground was injured, although two employees of Steelworks Inc. were working in the yard when the crash occurred. The body of the fifth victim, the lone occupant of the second plane, was still inside the burnt remains of the aircraft while firefighters doused the flames.
Witness say it appeared one plane had just taken off from the airport when it collided with the descending plane 200 or 300 feet in the air. Air traffic controllers were eliminated from the Penticton Airport in a cost-cutting move by Transport Canada in 1995.
Elin Bigler and her husband, Ken of the Seattle, Wash., area were cycling along Fairview Road when Elin looked up and saw the planes come together.
I said, “‘Ken, there’s an air show!’ They made a boom when they hit, but I thought they were just practising something. They hit and I thought they were practising an air show at first. It was so incredible.”
To her horror, the planes began to break apart in mid-air.
“Then all of a sudden, the debris started falling out of the sky from where they hit. You could see red and white parts. I said, ‘Ken, they hit!’ There was all this stuff falling out of the sky. I saw it. Then that one spiraled right to the ground.”
Bigler was referring to one plane that came down in the parking lot at the Penticton campus of Okanagan University College.
“Black smoke just plummeted up from where it hit the ground. We just stopped at the fence at the college. It was engulfed in flames. There wasn’t much left when they were through putting it out.”
Transport Canada investigators were scheduled to arrive at the crash scene late Friday afternoon. No names have yet been released.
AUGUST 31, 1999 – Two Penticton men and a former Summerland man were among five who perished in a mid-air collision between two small planes over the city Friday.
Douglas Riley, 59 and Stuart Anderson, 61, both of Penticton, were among four who died aboard a 1962 Mooney M20C aircraft which spiraled into the ground behind Steelworks Inc. on Waterloo Avenue off Fairview Road.
The wreckage narrowly missed a fork-lift driver who was only metres from the point of impact. No one on the ground was injured.
Three members of one family died in the crash of the Mooney. Dead at the scene were pilot, Thorsten Watterodt, 33, of Beaumont, Alta., his son, four-year-old Auston and Douglas Riley, the pilot’s fatherin-law. Anderson, who also died in the Mooney, was a family friend.
Pilot Terrance J. Sabourin, 56, of Valemount, B.C., was the sole occupant of the second plane, a Cessna 177 RG, that plunged into the parking lot of Okanagan University College, about 300 metres north of the Mooney crash site.
Sabourin, formerly of Summerland, was manager of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce there for about 10 years.
Preliminary investigation suggests Sabourin had just taken off from the Penticton Airport and was headed north when the collision occurred in the air over the Channel Parkway.
Investigators from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada out of Richmond were on site at both crashes Saturday and Sunday. They were joined by RCMP member, RCMP forensic investigators, insurance investigators and personnel from the Penticton Fire Department.
By Sunday, the wreckage had been cleared away and there was nothing left at that crash scene, but a depression in the blackened pavement. There, someone had laid rocks in the shape of a cross and a bouquet of flowers.
Though witnesses reported hearing a loud “pop” when the planes collided, there was no mid-air explosion, said Penticton coroner Gary Davidson who is assisting in the investigation.