STUDENTS MOURN INSTRUCTORS
Students in the Mount Royal University aviation program comfort each other as they attend a press conference dealing with Monday’s crash that killed two instructors.
For the past two years, Luc Sinal has been pursuing his dream career, flying high above the clouds. “My dad’s a pilot,” says the 22-year-old with a smile. “I got the bug too, and I couldn’t stop.”
Along with sharing the joys of flying, his dad also taught him a harsh fact of life in his profession: sooner or later, someone you know is going to die in a crash.
“It is a dangerous thing,” he says. “For most people in aviation, after 30 years you will know someone who has passed away — and they say the first one is quite difficult.”
All the knowledge in the world, though, is no match for that first time. In Sinal’s case, it happened far sooner than he expected.
On Tuesday morning, he and his classmates enrolled in Mount Royal University’s aviation diploma program are mourning the loss of two beloved full-time instructors, who died Monday afternoon when their twinengined Tecnam aircraft went down in the Waiparous area about 100 kilometres northwest of the city.
While the school isn’t releasing names on Tuesday morning, by late afternoon MRU president David Docherty confirms one of the deceased is Jeffrey Bird, a former RCAF captain, Afghanistan veteran, husband and father.
Later in the evening, the other pilot is named. He is Reynold Johnson, a pilot who had a 35-year aviation career with Air Canada and Jazz, and was an alumnus of the University of Lethbridge.
Though they keep the identities secret Tuesday morning, Sinal and his classmates know who both are and are mourning them deeply.
“He was easily the kindest man I ever met,” he says of one of those instructors as he wipes his tears.
“The time we spend with these instructors is usually on a oneon-one basis, so we get to know them extremely well.”
In the university’s Nickle Theatre Tuesday morning, about 60 fellow classmates join Sinal, the president of the aviation students’ executive.
As they listen to Docherty speak to reporters, their collective expression is one of sorrow mixed, quite understandably, with shock and disbelief. Outside, the flags at the school are lowered in the instructors’ honour.
Only a day earlier, it was a different world for the students, ambitious young people who, with private pilot licences in hand, were in the much-respected aviation diploma program to get their Canadian commercial licences.
It had been an exciting few years: in 2012 MRU celebrated the acquisition of four singleengine Cessna C-172 Skyhawks (now numbering five), along with three Tecnam P2006Ts from Italy, an economical alternative to most twin-engined models; it was one of the two-engined planes that went down Monday.
Along with a new flight simulator, the fleet was said to have changed the game for its students, the only aviation program in the province to provide both university academics and Transport Canada-certified flight training.
On the day the new fleet was unveiled five years ago, family of Kathy and Gordon Laing were present. They had made a $100,000 pledge to the program through a memorial fund in the couple’s name; the Laings died in a plane crash in 1998, not far from where the plane went down on Monday.
The most recent loss is a staggering one, both for the program and for the loved ones, colleagues and students of the instructors. As he addresses the news media, Docherty is visibly shaken, his lower lip trembling as he talks about the two lost colleagues.
“I’d like to thank,” says Docherty, his voice cracking as he pauses briefly, “our own counsellors and counsellors from SAIT and the University of Calgary, who have reached out to support our students.”
Sinal tells the crowd that he and 40 of his classmates “crammed into a residence room” until the early hours of Tuesday morning, sharing “some of our favourite memories of these two extraordinary flight instructors.”
When asked if the tragedy has made him think twice about his chosen profession, the young man doesn’t hesitate. “I don’t think there is much that could stop my passion for flying, to be honest.”
He’s likely not alone in feeling that the best way to honour their memories is to keep pursuing his dream of a career high above the clouds.
“These instructors helped us discover the love of flying.”