The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
Three children among seven victims of Kingston plane crash
KINGSTON, Ont. — Seven people, including three children, have been identified as the victims of a plane crash in northwest Kingston on Wednesday evening that is now being investigated by the Transportation Safety Board.
Lead TSB investigator Ken Webster told a news conference Thursday evening that the plane took off from Toronto Buttonville Municipal Airport in Markham under visual flight rules, meaning the pilot was required to maintain a visual reference to the land.
But for an as-yet unknown reason, the plane took a steep dive over a wooded area and plunged to the ground just after 5 p.m., the TSB said.
RCAF Capt. Graeme Scott said a crew aboard a Griffin helicopter from 424 Transport and Rescue Squadron from Canadian Forces Base Trenton found the wreckage of the Piper PA-32 using data provided by the downed plane’s on-board emergency locator transmitter.
The crew lowered searchand-rescue technicians to search for survivors. There were none.
When Kingston Police arrived on ATVs, the military technicians left at about 8:45 p.m. Police held the scene until four TSB investigators arrived at about 9:30 a.m. on Thursday.
Police described the scene as “a mess.”
On Thursday afternoon, two friends of the pilot and the family on board, Mehmet Basti and Zack Balicki, arrived. They identified the pilot, Otabek Oblokulov of Texas, his wife and three children, aged three, 11 and 15. Also on board was a young couple from Toronto, Basti said.
Basti said they are reaching out to Oblokulov’s family, and they have spoken to his brother. The families were scheduled to spend time in Kingston with Basti’s family before heading on to Quebec City.
“They were going to Quebec City for vacation, because of the holiday, American Thanksgiving,” Basti said. “We were waiting for their call when they landed. We waited a long time, so I searched on Google and this showed up.”
The victims’ bodies were removed from the scene just before 3 p.m. on Thursday.
Webster said the aircraft had communicated with the Kingston’s Norman Rogers Airport just before the crash.
Webster said that approaching a tragic scene such as this one can be challenging for first responders and investigators.
“It is important that we think objectively and try to do our job, regardless of the circumstances,” Webster said. “We’re here to provide people the answers.”
Webster said the aircraft was destroyed, but there was no post-impact fire.
“There were reports to deteriorating weather en route, however at this time we don’t know to what effect this had on the accident,” Webster said. “We will obtain detailed weather information as the investigation proceeds.”
Kingston pilot Avery Wagg of the Kingston Flying Club described the flying conditions Wednesday as windy. Wagg described the aircraft — a single-engine plane that can carry five or six passengers in addition to the pilot — as a “good plane.”
“It had all kinds of capacity, well-powered,” Wagg said. “It has a lot of us scratching our heads, actually, because, if it happened on an airplane the size of mine (a small, twoseat aircraft), you go, ‘Why was he flying anyway?’ But that airplane is heavier. It can withstand all those bumps and banging around, so the weather was sketchy, but not terrible.
“It has us scratching our heads.”
Webster said investigators would be examining the wreckage, collecting data from its systems, conducting witness interviews, and checking maintenance history and the pilot’s qualifications. They will then decide which parts of the wreckage they’ll need to take back to the TSB laboratory for further examination. He said that, to the best of their knowledge, all of the pieces of the aircraft were at the site.
“So now we have to put the aircraft back together,” Webster said. “We have to lay it out and try to figure out what went wrong with this flight. We’ll check all the mechanical workings of the aircraft to see if it was working properly at the time.”
Webster said it was too early to say what caused the crash or what contributed to it. He added that the plane did not have a flight data recorder, and was not required to have one.
“That being said, there are other types of electronics on board the aircraft that may provide some useful information,” Webster said. “There were GPSs, personal electronic devices, so those will be sent to our laboratory, the information will be downloaded and we’ll try to reconstruct the flight as much as possible.”