Survival lit
Carol Shaben was a 22-year-old journalist working in the Middle East in 1984 when she read a short article in the Jerusalem Post about the crash of a small commuter plane in northern Alberta that nearly took her father’s life. Twenty-eight years later, she has written an absorbing account of the crash, Into the Abyss, and the way it changed the lives of the four survivors.
Larry Shaben, who died of cancer shortly before the book was published, was Canada’s first Muslim cabinet minister. At the time of the crash, he was Alberta’s housing and utilities’ minister, commuting back to High Prairie, Alta., from the legislature in Edmonton.
Though injured, Shaben, RCMP officer Scott Deschamps, Paul Archambault, a prisoner with a history of robbery convictions, and rookie pilot Erik Vogel survived a long night in the shadow of the downed Piper Navajo aircraft flown by Wapiti Aviation. Huddled near a small fire lit with bark they peeled from trees and salvaged papers, the four kept each other going by telling stories and lame jokes. Archambault joked with Deschamps it was a good thing the Mountie had removed his handcuffs at the beginning of the flight — since the prisoner, the least injured of the four, made repeated forays into the woods for fuel for the fire and retrieved clothing from the plane to keep them warm. They were unable to save the other six passengers killed in the crash — including a man trapped behind the co-pilot’s seat who lingered for hours, though Archambault returned at least twice to the plane, despite the sub-zero temperatures and his knowledge that he couldn’t free the injured passenger, holding the man’s hand until he died.
Shaben’s gripping narrative seizes the reader from the first chapter. She opens with Vogel’s dilemma: sleep-deprived, and running behind schedule in bad weather, he takes dangerous chances to try to get his passengers to their destinations, responding to the pressure-cooker atmosphere that pilots felt working for Wapiti Aviation. Shaben temporarily interrupts her story’s flow to describe the airline’s culture and other safety factors, but hits her stride again when she describes rescue efforts and then, following the crash, the four men’s decisions to alter the course of their lives. Shaben eventually left politics and helped found the Edmonton Council of Muslim Communities to promote a deeper understanding of Islam and combat racism. Deschamps changed careers, attended university and found a half-sister he’d never met. Archambault was reborn as a hero before falling once again into addiction and homelessness. Vogel became a firefighter and spoke out about flight safety, eventually flying again. The survivors’ enduring contact, on the anniversary of the crash, either through phonecalls or in person was a testament to their bond.
Shaben, an award-winning investigative reporter, paints a compelling picture of the lax regulations and pressurecooker atmosphere surrounding commuter aircrafts. The Wapiti Piper Navajo did not even carry a First Aid kit or survival equipment.
Five years after the 1984 crash, an Air Ontario Fokker F-28 plane carrying 65 passengers and four crew members crashed shortly after takeoff from Dryden, Ont. Twenty-one passengers and three crewmembers, including the pilot and co-pilot, died. As in the Alberta event, icing, the pilot’s decisions and competitive pressures played critical roles in the tragedy. It wasn’t until the subsequent Air Ontario inquiry, headed by Mr. Justice Virgil Moshansky, that Transport Canada adopted crucial regulations regarding de-icing, training and other safety measures. Just as on the Wapiti flight, the Air Ontario flight also carried a prisoner. He too was escorted by RCMP officers. Unlike Deschamps, however, they did not take their prisoner’s handcuffs off — until after the crash. Deschamps’ decision, as Shaben makes clear, likely saved all four men’s lives the night of the Wapiti crash because it allowed Archambault to survive, help rescue Deschamps and keep the others alive.