by Carol Shaben
With 12,000 hours of flying experience, most of it in the north, Dale flew the Cessna by feel. He knew the contours of the land as well as those of his own face. He kept the single-engine four-seater just above the cloud, advancing steadily toward the High Prairie airport. Dale trained a close eye on the instruments, but his mind was on his missing pilot. Vogel was no greenhorn. On the check rides that he’d flown with him, Dale had found his handling of the airplane well above average—even excellent. He had appeared sharp on procedures and his accuracy had been very good. He’d logged more hours in the cockpit than almost any pilot Dale had hired and had demonstrated strong airmanship, the ability to think on his feet, and a good awareness of what was going on around him.
Still, in the past few days, Vogel had seemed off his game. Dale thought of the flight documentation Vogel had left behind earlier that day. A pilot forgetting the aircraft journey log was like a priest forgetting his Bible. During passenger check-in Dale had briefly considered taking the flight himself, but the thought had disappeared as quickly as it had come. He was on standby for a medivac and needed to stick around. But the problems with Vogel concerned him. The blown starter. The forgotten props. They were small things—not enough to turf him—though troubling nonetheless.
Dale was beginning to think that the young man was no different from the other prima donna pilots who’d come and gone over the years. They arrived with their big egos and macho attitudes, thinking little operations like Wapiti were beneath them. Dale had invested a lot of time and money giving rookie pilots darn good training and what did he get in return? The bigger airlines snapped up the hotshots and the others were gone the minute something better came along. Erik Vogel had come to him with more hours than most, but Dale knew that he, too, was just building flying time with Wapiti. Dale had also heard that Vogel’s dad was a political bigwig out on the coast. As far as Dale was concerned, privileged kids like Vogel had no idea what hard work was or what it took to run a successful airline. They wanted everything handed to them on a platter.
As he neared High Prairie, Dale pushed these unsettling thoughts to the back of his mind and radioed Luella.
“I’m in the vicinity and I’m going to try to locate the ELT signal,” he told her.
Luella, who had been dividing her time between operating the radio and taking weather observations, had her hands full. Having Wapiti’s chief pilot searching the area was the last thing she needed. Just after 10:00 p.m. she’d taken her third observation, a cumbersome process that involved walking 100 metres beyond the terminal’s parking lot where a small beacon sat on a fence post. Luella plugged in the beacon—little more than a lamp with a strong beam—and retraced her steps to the parking lot. Using a handheld ceiling projector, she lined it up to where the light hit the bottom of the clouds and read the measurement on the projector’s instrument scale. Then she walked back to the field to unplug the lamp. The whole process took the better part of ten minutes and Luella found that she’d no sooner finished one observation than it was time to start another.
Inside her trailer, the phone had started ringing off the hook. News of the missing plane had swept through the town as fast as a grass fire across parched prairie. Locals were calling to find out what was happening and to offer help.
The scene was the same at the local High Prairie RCMP detachment. Just after 9:30, Sergeant Marvin Hopkins had arrived to find his station in an uproar. Known as “Hoppy” to his friends, he was a fit, 5′10″ bear of a man in his late forties. His light brown hair was styled in the same Brillo pad brush cut he had sported since he was a teen in the fifties, and beneath heavily furrowed brows his blue eyes were keenly alert. He’d been at home with his feet up when one of his members had called.
“Get in here, boss,” he’d said. “All hell’s breaking loose.”
Hoppy soon learned that the Rescue Coordination Centre in Edmonton had launched a MAJAID and that the Canadian Military Command Centre in Trenton, Ontario, was already monitoring SARSAT—the international search-and-rescue satellite system designed to pick up distress signals of emergency locator beacons.
He also discovered that the High Prairie RCMP detachment was being pressed into action. Due to perilous flying conditions, and the presumed proximity of the crash site to the town, the Rescue Coordination Centre had requested the RCMP organize a ground search party to stand by in the event that military planes couldn’t get in.
Then came more disturbing news: Minister Larry Shaben, the region’s MLA, and others from High Prairie were on the missing plane. For a moment Hoppy was at an uncharacteristic loss. Then he rocketed into action.
He knew several RCMP officers who owned their own snowmobiles, and called to alert them that they and their machines might be needed. Hoppy also called the Peace River detachment, which had a handheld ELT homing device, and asked someone to drive it to High Prairie as fast as possible. He’d barely hung up the phone when the Rescue Coordination Centre dropped another bombshell: John Tenzer, the Alberta government’s chief pilot, had just called to say that government opposition leader, Grant Notley, was also on the plane.
Hoppy lit a cigarette and dragged on it deeply. No matter how it ended, this crash was going to cause a shit storm.
Just up the street, Dave Heggie, a thirty-eight-year-old father of two, was surprised to walk out of the High Prairie movie theatre and find Maurice Pacquette waiting for him. A fellow pilot and volunteer member of Alberta’s Civil Air Rescue Emergency Services, or CARES, Pacquette told him what had happened. Heggie dropped his young sons at home and the two men hurried to Heggie’s pharmacy to gather and brief a small cadre of local volunteer pilots before they all hightailed it out to the airport.
In his day job Heggie ran the High Prairie hospital pharmacy, but his true passion was flying. Ten years earlier he’d volunteered for CARES to finagle time in the cockpit. Now he was High Prairie’s sector commander for the civilian organization designed to backstop the Canadian military’s air search-and-rescue system. Heggie well understood the challenge search-and-rescue personnel faced. The small elite military force had the colossal task of covering more than 10 million square kilometres of land, as well as the world’s longest coastal waters extending offshore to the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Nationally, the Canadian Forces’ aeronautical domain extended from the US border to the North Pole, and from approximately 600 nautical miles west of Vancouver Island in the Pacific to 900 nautical miles east of Newfoundland in the Atlantic. When asked what advice he, as a CARES sector commander, would give to other pilots, Heggie’s response was chilling: Don’t crash.
When they all arrived at the airport just after 11:00, Luella was visibly relieved to relinquish her post at the UNICOM. She’d had only Edith to help with the phone and had been running—Luella would later write, “walking wasn’t fast enough”—to record weather observations and operate the radio. She told Heggie that Dale Wells, Wapiti’s chief pilot, was already in the area, and the military was preparing to dispatch one of its Hercules military transport aircraft from Canadian Forces Base Edmonton.
Southeast of the airport, Dale circled his plane through thick cloud. After he’d radioed Luella, he’d continued southeast along the flight path that Erik Vogel would have been on. Flying toward Swan Hills for several minutes, Dale had picked up a faint distress signal. He’d felt the air being sucked from his lungs. It had to be 402.
He sat numbly at the controls as the signal grew louder and then began to fade again. He banked sharply and turned, his focus fully on locating the downed plane. For the next forty-five minutes he flew a search pattern over the area. During one pass, Dale saw the flare of an oil well torch, but other than that, thick cloud and fog made it impossible to see the ground. The ELT signal was distorted, fading in and out, but he managed to narrow down the crash area to between 30 and 40 kilometres south of High Prairie. It was close to 11:30 when he radioed High Prairie, saying he was going to attempt a landing at the airport. Luella stepped outside to
take a look at the cloud ceiling. It had dropped dramatically and was now down to between 50 and 100 feet above the runway. She relayed the information to Dale.
Though supremely experienced at flying in difficult conditions and intimately familiar with the area, even he couldn’t argue with tonight’s weather. With a heavy heart he banked and, turning the plane toward Grande Prairie, headed home.
CONFESSION
In the snow-draped wilderness 32 kilometres southeast of High Prairie, four men huddled around a feeble campfire. Snow tumbled wetly upon their heads and the burning wood sizzled and crackled, sending wisps of smoke into the air. A wan moon had risen above the trees and though obscured by thick cloud, its faint light stole the night’s inky edge.
Erik surveyed the bloodied faces of the surviving passengers, Paul to his left and Larry to his right, both smoking silently. Scott lay on the ground next to him, the topcoat draped over him speckled with snow. Inside the plane, five passengers were dead and another critically injured. Erik was overcome with guilt and remorse.
Tell them. Tell them who you are.
His lips moved soundlessly, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it aloud. Blood still dripped from the open gash on his forehead, darkening the snow at his feet. Finally, Erik got it out, his voice thick with emotion. “I’m the pilot,” he said.
Scott had not stirred since being set down, but now asked, “How long will it take before they start looking for us?”
Erik glanced reflexively at his wrist, but saw only a deep gash the metal watch strap had sliced into his flesh. The watch itself was gone. He had no idea how long they had been on the ground, but he’d radioed his position just before he’d veered out of controlled airspace. Air traffic control would have been expecting him to contact them and when he didn’t, would have sounded the alarm.
Erik explained that the plane’s ELT would lead rescuers to them within a few hours. What he didn’t appreciate was how difficult the task of pinpointing the crash site would be that night.
Scott checked his watch. They’d been on the ground for two hours and he wondered how long they could last. Like all RCMP officers, Scott was trained in first aid. He’d noticed Erik’s laboured, shallow breaths and had taken this as a bad sign—probably a punctured lung and internal bleeding. He’d diagnosed his own condition as a flail chest: a life-threatening injury in which a segment of rib cage breaks in multiple locations, becomes separated from the chest wall and moves in opposition to it.
Larry, too, appeared to be suffering. He had refused to sit down and when he walked, his movements were slow and painfully precise, his arms outstretched to compensate for his blindness. Larry’s hands and face were cut and swollen and one of his fingers was bent at an odd angle, clearly broken or dislocated.
Paul, apart from a gash on his temple, seemed fine.
While the others had waded into the bush in search of wood, Scott had come up with a laundry list of things the men would need if they hoped to survive: a radio to contact rescuers, a first aid kit, flares, blankets, a hatchet. Now that he knew Erik was the pilot, Scott asked him about each item in turn.
Somberly, Erik shook his head. The radio and battery had been destroyed in the crash and the plane didn’t carry any of the other items.
“No survival gear?” Scott asked, incredulous.
Erik told him there was no legal requirement to carry any of it, and even if there were, it would take up too much space and add weight to Wapiti’s often fully loaded planes.
Scott couldn’t believe it. He routinely carried as much on his back when hiking or skiing in the backcountry. Without an axe, he knew the men would be hard pressed to gather enough wood to keep the fire going. Already, it was proving a challenge. Every fifteen to twenty minutes, the flame sputtered and the three ambulatory survivors had to leave the warmth of the fire in search of more wood.
“What about a flashlight?” Scott finally asked.
Erik surprised him by saying yes, remembering his penlight. “I have one in my flight bag.”
“Where would it be?”
“Right next to my seat,” Erik told him.
“I’ll go,” Paul offered. He knew exactly where the bag was.
“If you find it,” Erik told him, “there are four chocolate chip cookies in that bag.”
Scott raised his head from the ground and watched Paul leave. Fog shrouded the treetops and a dense stand of forest surrounded them. Scott was no stranger to the wilderness. An only child, he’d spent much of his childhood and teenage years hunting and fishing in the bush around the Vancouver suburb of Delta. By the time he was twelve, he was snaring rabbits and raccoons. At fourteen, he was running his own trapline, selling the skins for profit and even making a few Daniel Boone–style hats from the pelts. Later, he’d moved on to hunting larger game.
He’d always been comfortable in the wild, and he’d never felt helpless in it until now. He squinted into the forest beyond the fire’s flickering glow, searching for a shadow of movement or the reflective flash of eyes through the trees. This was bear country. Wolf country.
“My gun,” he said, clutching the empty holster on his chest. Frantically, Scott began darting his eyes across the snow around him.
Erik assumed the worst. He’s going to kill me for crashing the plane.
He staggered back from the fire, his breath coming in rapid, painful gasps. In spite of the cold, hot sweat dampened the back of his neck. The thought of putting more distance between himself and the cop briefly crossed Erik’s mind, but his insides burned with pain and his hands hung mangled and grossly swollen at his sides. He knew he wasn’t going anywhere.
I deserve this, he thought, closing his eyes.
Scott was frantically trying to recall where he’d left his sidearm. Then he remembered. He’d placed it inside his briefcase and put the briefcase beneath his seat before takeoff. It had to be somewhere inside the plane. He glanced toward the wreck, but Paul was nowhere in sight. Though RCMP regulations required Scott to keep his firearm at his side at all times, there was nothing he could do about it now. He only hoped his prisoner wouldn’t find it.
Paul quickly closed the distance to the plane and crawled in through the cockpit window. The trapped passenger was still moaning and Paul could also hear a disturbing repetitive sound above him. Thud. Thud. Thud. He realized the passenger was slamming his left arm against the cabin wall. Paul froze. “Don’t worry,” he whispered to the wounded man, “we’re not leaving you. Rescue is coming soon.”
As if comforted by Paul’s words, the passenger stopped banging. Paul waited a moment and reached for Erik’s flight bag, sliding it carefully from around the man’s other arm. As quickly as he’d entered, Paul left the plane.
Setting the bag at his feet, he fumbled for Larry’s cigarettes. Lighting one, he dragged deeply until the nicotine calmed him. He looked around and spied a black briefcase half-buried in the snow. Paul pulled it out and shook it vigorously, but heard only the sound of shifting paper. Hanging on to the briefcase, he shouldered Erik’s flight bag and returned to the fire. When he arrived, he flipped the clasps of the briefcase and opened it. His eyes confirmed what his ears had already told him: it contained only papers. As Paul added them to the fire, Larry wondered briefly if they were his—files that hours before had seemed like the most important documents in the world. Paul snapped the briefcase shut and offered it to Larry as a seat, but Larry shook his head. Then Paul turned his attention to the flight bag. The penlight was not in it, but the cookies from Erik’s mother more than made up for that.
“Good thing you removed those handcuffs, huh?” Paul joked to Scott. Though his tone was light, it hadn’t escaped him that he probably would have lost his hands—or worse—if he’d still been in cuffs. Nor could the others ignore their good fortune: they were alive while six passengers lay dead or dying inside the plane.
Paul pulled out Larry’s pack of cigarettes, offering him one and taking another for himself. Almost too brightly, P
aul launched into a string of lewd barroom jokes.
“Did you hear the one about the captain who shipwrecked his boat in the middle of the ocean?”
An uneasy look passed between Larry and Scott and they glanced toward Erik, but Paul was already into his story. Larry laughed politely when Paul was done, but his mind was elsewhere. He could scarcely believe that only hours ago he’d been sitting in the Alberta Legislature during question period. Grant Notley had stood across the floor from him demanding compensation for Steven Truscott, a teenager who had been falsely convicted of murder. Grant’s passionate words were etched in Larry’s memory: “Does the government consider there is, if not a legal obligation, a moral obligation for restitution?”
He’d agreed with Grant. Larry believed in restitution—in giving people a second chance. We’re often too quick to judge, he thought. Truscott was innocent, but had spent ten years in prison. Larry had always favoured the underdog and as a member of a visible minority, understood what it was like to be wrongly judged. Perhaps that was why he’d listened so intently to Grant’s speech that morning.
Larry felt his throat constrict. Grant had taken the co-pilot’s seat—the seat Larry had given up. Now Grant was dead along with others from his close-knit northern constituency.
He looked to his left where Erik sat quietly. Much of his face was dark with blood and his head was bowed. Larry may have been half-blind, but his powers of perception hadn’t dimmed.
“I could tell he was hurting physically and emotionally,” Larry recalled. Removing his necktie, he handed it to Erik to wrap around his head. Then he asked the young pilot, “What happened?”
Erik didn’t know until that moment, but he’d needed someone to ask the question, had needed to talk about the stress he’d been under during the past weeks at Wapiti. So he told the survivors everything: the pressure cooker atmosphere at the company, how it pushed its pilots and the weather. Erik admitted that he hadn’t wanted to take the flight that night, hadn’t believed it was safe. But he didn’t feel he’d had a choice. He thought his job was on the line.
