I’ve been flying for 11 years now.

Along the way I’ve enjoyed some great experiences, seen alot of the western and northern parts of this great country, and met alot of great people.

Unfortunately aviation has an ugly side.

Not long after I started taking flying lessons did I start to hear about the stories.  Stories of aviators who have met an untimely demise while doing a job they undoubtedly love.

Not even a year after finishing flight school, I was working for a heli-logging company as a co-pilot when I heard of another heli-logging company crash.  They flew the same helicopters we did, the Bell 214.  The aircraft lost power during a maintenance flight, crashing into a river, killing all 3 members onboard; the pilot, the co-pilot and the engineer.  The co-pilot had recently finished flight training and got the co-pilot job just the week prior.

It was a chilling story.

Over the years I have heard of other accidents.  Most I had never known the pilot or passengers onboard… but some I did.

As of today, sadly I have to report that I know of another great person who has been taken by aviation.

Last Friday we received a company-wide email that one of our helicopters was 48 hours overdue on a leg of a flight taking it to the arctic.  Search and Rescue had not located it… no ELT signal was detected… and the new satellite tracking device gave searchers no information to aid in locate the helicopter.

Yesterday… 8 days after the helicopter initially went missing, it was found.  Both the pilot and engineer were killed.  No other details were given, except the names of those lost.

I was deeply saddened to hear that the engineer was someone I knew.  While I didn’t know the pilot, I had worked with the engineer on several occasions.

TH (name withheld out of respect for the family) was both a great engineer and a just a great person.  He was always smiling… in fact, his smile was infectious.  He was a skilled engineer and always had an answer when I had a question.  He also was a friendly guy and made you feel comfortable straight after meeting him.

The worst part of this story is, tragically, he was married just a month ago.  I had the privilege of meeting his (then) girlfriend a couple of years ago.  They made a great couple and looked very happy.

Losing friends in this business is inevitable.  We know the risks when we get into this line of business and we accept them.  If we didn’t, we’d move on to something else.  We just can’t see ourselves doing something different, I guess… even if it puts us a great risk.

It’s just such a great shame.

RIP TH.