Thunder Bay, ON, December 12, 2015 – Wasaya Airways has learned Search And Rescue (SARs) ground crews have reached the aircraft site of Wasaya flight 127.
Upon arrival, crews found the lone occupant of the aircraft, our Captain Nick Little, not responsive and he could not be resuscitated. Rescue crews are on site now and will remain on site through the night awaiting additional resources to airlift our fallen crew member home.
================
from me below
bizjets101 wrote:FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – December 12, 2015
Thunder Bay, ON, December 12, 2015 – Wasaya Airways has learned Search And Rescue (SARs) ground crews have reached the aircraft site of Wasaya flight 127.
Upon arrival, crews found the lone occupant of the aircraft, our Captain Nick Little, not responsive and he could not be resuscitated. Rescue crews are on site now and will remain on site through the night awaiting additional resources to airlift our fallen crew member home.
================
from me below
RIP Captain Nick Little
Godspeed Sir
That's horrible news
I met Nick back in July '12 when we were both FO's on the PC-12. RIP buddy
I know this operator has an ops spec to be VFR in uncontrolled airspace at 300ft and 1 mile vis, this needs to be done away with. It is not conducive to safety and needs to be done away with. A caravan has no business flying around in those conditions.
I am so sorry to hear this. I flew out of Pickle for several years, and I remember all the pilots from various companies knew each other. Things like this hurt us all. Keep each other close.
---------- ADS -----------
If I'd known I was going to live this long, I'd have taken better care of myself
Horrible news. Came in this morning hoping for the best.
Can't imagine what this poor families Christmas is going to be like.
And on a very related note........the day and age of trying to deice a Caravan, or any other aircraft for that matter, using only a backpack with room temperature glycol, and only the pressure of a little hand wand, has passed. Long ago.
I have been working in this business, at a northern base, for almost thirty years.
I have seen SMS come in, and deal effectively with smaller issues (that common sense should have solved), while larger operational concerns went unchecked. Like incredibly ineffective deicing. To this day, I see smaller aircraft come in covered in ice, and the poor crews whacking away at the leading edge with a broom handle and then this tiny little stream of glycol that accomplishes exactly nothing!!!
I know some may say that this is not the time or place to post this. But to me, this is exactly the time and place!
I can't imagine what it could gave been like to successfully land the plane, possibly hear the SAR aircraft above only to hear them turn around and wait 12 hours and have the cold take your life. Remember everyone, dress warmly and remember that the weather you decide to fly in is the weather SAR will have to fight with if you were ever to need rescue. Fly safe.
SAR said it looked to be in one piece, no smoke, no fire. However we don't know if perhaps in the landing he could have hit is head and become incapacitated. One would think that if he landed safely that his radios would still work, and he would be able to run the heater to stay warm.. so logic would presume he passed in the crash or shortly after.
I want make sure the SAR and OPP are recognized here as well for their efforts in reaching the aircraft. It was not a great day in NWO yesterday and fighting freezing rain, low ceilings and cold temperatures they trekked nearly 30km through the bush in the dark to reach the plane. It's sad that this was the outcome.
Digits, it was around -5* in the Pickle Area yesterday.
Many facts to come yet so a little early to be trying speculate as to whether the pilot succumbed to cold or injuries sustained. My comment is directed to the person that talked about inadequate de-icing facilities. Although I agree de-icing in remote communities can be and is a problem it had nothing to do with this event. This was an in-flight icing encounter, the flight encountered ice while en-route and a decision to return to Pickle Lake was made, the flight did not make it. Many things will be examined by the TSB and the regulator going forward, lets hope they are able to determine the true root causes of how and why this happened. I can assure it isn't as simple as the aircraft encountering icing that was beyond the capabilities of the aircraft.
Save the speculation and inferiority complex malfunctions for another day. Many family and friends just woke up to very tragic news and it's going to be a very difficult season for them.
My thoughts are with the families and friends of Nick. My deepest condolences.
Yes, this is a difficult day for everyone. But this happens far too often to our newest pilots. But out of respect for the deceased, we may as well learn from this as difficult as it may be for some.
Shortly after that Caravan crash in Winnipeg few yrs back due airframe ice in which the pilot lost her life, I was contracted to do IAP designs and subsequent procedure flight checks for northern sites. I let it be known I will not conduct any flight checking in that aircraft type. There were some lively commentary from the contractor but I prevailed, BE200 was provided.
TheFrankestFrank wrote:Many facts to come yet so a little early to be trying speculate as to whether the pilot succumbed to cold or injuries sustained. My comment is directed to the person that talked about inadequate de-icing facilities. Although I agree de-icing in remote communities can be and is a problem it had nothing to do with this event. This was an in-flight icing encounter, the flight encountered ice while en-route and a decision to return to Pickle Lake was made, the flight did not make it. Many things will be examined by the TSB and the regulator going forward, lets hope they are able to determine the true root causes of how and why this happened. I can assure it isn't as simple as the aircraft encountering icing that was beyond the capabilities of the aircraft.
While I realize the situation is not identical, I think it is still completely relevant. Because these aircraft are not effectively deiced prior to departure, they are absolutely contaminated already when leaving. So then they add a little more on the next leg. And then a little more on the next leg after that. And so on. A recipe for disaster.
I'm sure lots of us have or still do work in the north and the thing I find the most concerning is the time it took to get to this pilot from the time he was spotted. Our SAR crews are top notch but the lack of resources we have is concerning, why do we have helicopters that can't fly into icing in a SAR role? This aircraft went down somewhere that isn't even all that remote what if it was in the arctic or out of range of any ground based rescue ? Would it be a couple days as we wait for the weather conditions to get better?
This is a known issue and although I don't know if this was a contributing factor in this accident do we have to wait until this becomes a contributing factor in future accidents to fix this?
I'd rather have the money spent on infrastructure in the big cities which is over due that a much larger portion of the population would use than for some spiffy aircraft to go look for people that will never learn from past mistakes of others. Why these Caravan drivers and operators don't get it by now is hard to understand. I'm starting to think it's lack of experience and inability to make a competant descision. Aircraft placarded with do not fly into known or forecast icing, AFM has it, past accidents tell you not to. Seems some aren't taking the issue seriously. Might be time to just put a stop to all wintertime flying for the caravan if the crews and operators can't understand the do not fly into known or forecast icing warning.
fish4life wrote:I'm sure lots of us have or still do work in the north and the thing I find the most concerning is the time it took to get to this pilot from the time he was spotted. Our SAR crews are top notch but the lack of resources we have is concerning, why do we have helicopters that can't fly into icing in a SAR role? This aircraft went down somewhere that isn't even all that remote what if it was in the arctic or out of range of any ground based rescue ? Would it be a couple days as we wait for the weather conditions to get better?
This is a known issue and although I don't know if this was a contributing factor in this accident do we have to wait until this becomes a contributing factor in future accidents to fix this?
