A nearly 8-hour search for a small plane that went missing in south-central Ontario has ended with the discovery of the plane in Algonquin Park with two deceased men inside it.
The pilot was a 25-year-old man from India, and the passenger is also believed to be in his 20s and not from Canada.
The wreckage of the single-engine Cessna 150 was found around 5:30 a.m. Wednesday about 20 kilometres south of Whitney on a small hill. The difficult terrain is not accessible by car and a rescue helicopter was also unable to land there. The rescue team hoisted a technician down to the ground, and that’s when the two bodies were discovered.
The Cessna lost contact with regional air traffic controllers above a dense, heavily wooded area near Haliburton shortly after the “disoriented” pilot had declared an airborne emergency around 8:30 p.m. Monday, according to Capt. Alexandre Cadieux, a spokesman for the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Trenton, Ont.
The pilot was concerned about his ability to fly in inclement weather and feared he would not be able to find a suitable landing site before he ran out of fuel, Cadieux told CP24.
The JRCC launched a Hercules aircraft and a Griffon helicopter to search for the single-engine, two-seater plane, and the Ontario Provincial Police began a search on the ground.
“The Hercules picked up on a ELT signal, an Emergency Locator Transmitter beacon, which narrowed down the search to the vicinity of Algonquin Park and allowed the Griffin to move in closer,” Cadieux said.
Capt. Jean Houde, also from the JRCC, told CP24 that the two rescue vehicles were dispatched as soon as they learned that the pilot was lost with the hopes that they could direct him toward the airport in Trenton.
“At night, it can become very easy to get disoriented and not know where you’re going,” he said. “It’s hard to discern what looks like an airport with a landing runway from just normal city street lights.”
However, the plane had only about 40 minutes of fuel left and ran out of gas by the time the rescue aircraft were able to take off.
Houde also said the Cessna, a 1976 rental aircraft from a flying club in Toronto, had limited navigation equipment.
Fly Block Time, the company that had rented out the privately owned Cessna, said the plane had been inspected last week, it had been declared “night ready,” and that the pilot had had 30 hours of flying time in the very same aircraft last month.
The plane, which had taken off from Buttonville, Ont. was expected to head to Peterborough and Ottawa. It is not yet known when it left Buttonville or what its exact itinerary was.
Derek Sifton, president of Toronto Airways which operates the Toronto Buttonville Municipal Airport, said they provide rental space to Fly Block Time, and were not involved with training the pilot or renting out the aircraft.
The OPP is now investigating the cause of the crash.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada has also deployed a team of investigators to "gather information and assess the occurrence," according to a press release.
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