Oct. 19, 1984: Plane crash kills NDP leader Notley and five others
Alberta NDP Leader Grant Notley and five others died when their fogbound Wapiti Aviation plane crashed into a wooded, snowy hillside south of Lesser Slave Lake.
Airport authorities in Peace River had reported the flight was overdue that Friday night. Around the same time, the pilot of an aircraft near High Prairie reported hearing signals from an emergency locator beacon.
“It was very bad; it didn’t look like anybody should have survived,” U.S. army Capt. Frank Pringle said the next morning, moments after helping to pick up the four survivors, including Alberta Housing Minister Larry Shaben. A helicopter had found the survivors gathered around a campfire for warmth.
On the night of the crash, Notley, 45, had thought he would stay over in Edmonton instead of returning home to Fairview for the weekend, said Howard Leeson, Notley’s first legislature assistant and later his biographer. A party meeting was expected to run late, but didn’t. So Notley rushed to Edmonton’s Municipal Airport to catch Wapiti Flight 402, the last one that day.
“I happened to see him in the airport,” Leeson told the Calgary Herald. “He was the very last person to run for the plane. A Tory minister (Shaben) got on just before him.”
It was later revealed that pilot Erik Vogel didn’t want to fly that night because of poor weather and because he didn’t trust his aircraft.
At Notley’s legislature office the next day, a shaken and tearful Ray Martin, the only remaining NDP MLA, told reporters he had lost his best friend.
It was an eerie setting. A picture of Notley’s daughter Rachel and sons Paul and Stephen rested on a side table. On his desk a timetable sat open, the only entry for Friday, Oct. 19: “Wapiti — 6:45.”
Also killed in the crash of the twin-engined Piper Chieftain were Elaine Noskeye, a mother of 14 from the Whitefish First Nation; Fairview resident Pat Blaskovits, who left behind eight children and one grandchild; High Prairie residents Chris Vince and Gordon Peever; and Terry Swanson of Fairview.
In addition to Shaben and Vogel, the survivors were RCMP officer Scott Deschamps and Paul Archambault, who was being escorted to Grande Prairie to face charges. Only Archambault escaped injury, and he was later hailed as a hero for pulling Deschamps from the wreckage and tending to other survivors through the night.
When Shaben died of cancer in September 2008, his daughter Carol said the crash had greatly affected how her father lived the rest of his life.
“A few years back, my dad told me that every year on the anniversary of the plane crash he reflects on his life, and whether he has made good use of the 20 years that God gave to him and not to others,” she said.