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.
]]>Yesterday I was on my way home along Hwy 1 through Vancouver. If you are familiar with Vancouver, I had just exited the Cassiar tunnel enroute to the Second Narrows Bridge to North Vancouver.
The speed limit was 70km/h. Rarely is anyone doing 70 km/h but rather 80 – 90. I was keeping pace with the flow of traffic in the right hand lane.
A white Honda sped past in the fast lane. Clearly he was doing in excess of 100 km/h… probably 110 km/h.
Now normally this wouldn’t really phase me but I immediately noticed the ‘N’ sticker (new driver). Now I have a problem…
The driver got held up in slower traffic on the bridge but I lost him after he exited ahead of me into North Van. As luck would have it, I pulled into a gas station to fill up and there he was. I jotted down the plate and make and model of the vehicle and got a description of the (surprise) young, male driver. He was between 18-20… very typical for an aggressive, “thinks-he’s-Mario-Andretti” driver.
In B.C. there is the graduated licensing program. First the driver gets the ‘L’ sticker (learner) and only after many months can they go for the road test and get the ‘N’ designation. I think it is 2 years they must have this but I’m not sure.
I believe that during this period, these new drivers should be held under significant scrutiny. Any infractions should be dealt with harshly and these drivers should face heavy penalties including loss of license if it’s found that they have made numerous infractions.
The problem lies in the fact that unless they are actually caught by police, the infraction simply doesn’t happen.
ICBC doesn’t have any mechanism to report unsafe drivers province wide. They only have a useless web page with virtually no information. There are two regions with toll-free numbers to report unsafe drivers but they are limited to the Hwy 1 in the Fraser Canyon and Hwy 99 to Whistler. There are no other options listed to report unsafe drivers.
I’ve left a message with the Vancouver Police Traffic Unit but I doubt much will happen there.
In my mind there needs to be something put in place to monitor and record citizen reported unsafe driving acts. At least then the drivers in question could be dealt higher insurance costs or some other means of deterring their unsafe acts.
And don’t get me wrong… I believe this should be in place for ALL drivers… not just new drivers.
Sure, there is a legality factor here… anyone miffed at someone could easily report them as being ‘unsafe’. They key here would be multiple infractions. If a driver received numerous infractions reported by various people over a period of time, it would be reasonable to draw the conclusion that the driver was indeed fairly reckless and that might lead to some sort of penalty.
How do you think unsafe drivers should be dealt with?
]]>There are plenty of mountains, rivers, boreal forest and even some grand elevated plateaus with mountain sheep and caribou…. and the odd grizzly if you can spot one.
Here are just a few photos from the last few days…
