Sole Survivor Of Alberta Crash Found Staggering To Safety

It was a bittersweet discovery. Volunteer rescuers in Alberta, Canada, had been looking for about four hours, trying to find a downed Piper single-engine aircraft. They found it near nightfall near the town of Canmore. One victim was found inside the wreckage of the downed aircraft. But there was another person on board.

"Rescuers located the body of one of the plane's occupants inside the wreckage and located footprints walking away from the crash site," said Cpl. Keith Blake of the Kananaskis RCMP detachment.

"One survivor was found wandering in the woods, three kilometers from the crash site," said RCMP spokeswoman Constable Kerry Doran, in an interview with the Calgary Sun.

The aircraft was on what Canadian authorities describe as a "recreational or training" flight from Springbank Airport to Spray Lake Airport in Kannaskis when it disappeared about 65 miles west of Calgary.

Authorities say they got an ELT transmission shortly after the aircraft went missing at about 4:30 pm local time Saturday. With help from that transmitter, the wreckage was located at around 7:30 by civilian search teams.

Neither person aboard the aircraft has been identified. The survivor was hospitalized with what officials described as non-life-threatening injuries.

FMI: www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/index_e.htm