Took A Wrong Turn Up A Narrow Canyon And Could Not Climb Out

This is one of those stories that could have had a much different, and tragic ending. An 81-year-old pilot with two passengers on board was flying from Pitt Meadows to Whistler in Canada Sunday morning when he made a wrong turn into a mountain valley and found himself unable to turn the airplane around.

The pilot was vern Hannah. He told CBC News that he simply made a turn before he was supposed to, "and that was a mistake."

Hannah and his passengers in the 1963 Beech Musketeer found themselves in a narrow canyon with few options. When they tried to climb out of the canyon, they continued to lose airspeed and there was what Hannah described as a "terrific downdraft," and they found themselves running out of altitude as well.

Hannah managed to keep the plane in the air long enough to clear some rocks and find the glacier of the Pemberton Icefield ... a long, smooth place to land the plane. Hannah said the landing was smooth, "like icing on a cake," and the plane stopped almost immediately as its wheels settled into the snow.

Everyone on board the plane was uninjured.

The three left a note on the plane to say they were alive and tried to walk out of the woods. After spending the night in the forest, they were located by an SAR crew and airlifted out of the valley on Monday.

They learned that a search had been underway since they did not arrive as scheduled Sunday night. The plane's ELT did not activate, possibly because of the softness of the landing.

If there's one not-terrific aspect to this story, it’s that at least two of the three say they're pretty much done with flying. One passenger, 54-year-old Zbigniew (Peter) Jedynakiewicz had been learning to fly the plane. He told the CBC "I think no more after this." Hannah also said that he "probably" doesn't need to fly anymore.

Canada's Transportation Safety Board said they will not be investigating because they were able to determine the cause of the accident by talking to the people involved.

(RCAF image with red circle added by the CBC)

FMI: www.forces.gc.ca/en/operations-canada-north-america-current/sar-canada.page