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Saskatchewan Plane Crash: 2 Planes Discovered Near St. Brieux, Northeast Of Saskatoon

CP  |  By Posted: 05/12/2012 7:03 pm Updated: 05/15/2012 12:18 pm

ST. BRIEUX, Sask. - RCMP are confirming that five people have died in the mid-air collision of two small planes in Saskatchewan.

Police issued a news release saying a Lake Buccaneer amphibious plane was en-route from Regina to La Ronge with an adult male and female on board.

The second plane was a Piper PA-28 travelling from Calgary to St. Brieux, northeast of Saskatoon.

It had two adult males and one young male aboard.

Capt. Robert Landriault at the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Trenton, Ont, says the centre was alerted Saturday morning that aircraft wreckage was discovered near St. Brieux.

He says police responded to the scene, and determined there was actually wreckage from two planes.

Police say the first plane they found was submerged in a small body of water and their investigation has determined it collided with the second plane.

They say their underwater recovery team will remain at the scene until dusk.

The Transportation Safety Board says investigators are on their way to the area.

Also on HuffPost:

Loading Slideshow...

  • RCMP Corporal Rob King speaks with media a Saturday mid-air collision near St. Brieux, Sask., Sunday, May 13, 2012. Transportation Safety Board investigators are on their way to the scene of Saturday's midair collision in northern Saskatchewan that killed five people. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Liam Richards

  • Wreckage of one of two planes that crashed near St. Brieux, Sask., Sunday, May 13,2012. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Liam Richards

  • RCMP Corporal Rob King speaks with media near one of two plane crash sites near St. Brieux, Sask, Sunday, May 13,2012. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Liam Richards

  • A piece of a plane, believed to be a wing, that was found by a local farmer, after a small plane mid-air collision near St. Brieux, Sask. Sunday, May 13,2012. A Piper PA-28 and a Lake Buccaneer amphibious plane somehow came into contact with each other Satuday morning. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Liam Richards

  • The RCMP underwater recovery team searches the wreckage of one of two plane involved in a mid-air collision, near St. Brieux,Sask. on Sunday March 13, 2012. Transportation Safety Board investigators are on their way to the scene of Saturday's midair collision in northern Saskatchewan that killed five people. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Liam Richards

  • The RCMP underwater recovery team searches the wreckage of one of two plane involved in a mid-air collision, near St. Brieux,Sask. on Sunday March 13, 2012. Transportation Safety Board investigators are on their way to the scene of Saturday's midair collision in northern Saskatchewan that killed five people. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Liam Richards

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ST. BRIEUX, Sask. - RCMP are confirming that five people have died in the mid-air collision of two small planes in Saskatchewan.Police issued a news release saying a Lake Buccaneer amphibious plane wa...
ST. BRIEUX, Sask. - RCMP are confirming that five people have died in the mid-air collision of two small planes in Saskatchewan.Police issued a news release saying a Lake Buccaneer amphibious plane wa...
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Watson Richardson
17 Fans
12:08 PM on 05/13/2012
Clearly Harper is to blame. Or more likely Global Warming and Oilsands development.
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gunner51
1 Fans
01:57 PM on 05/13/2012
What are you smokin
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Thalin Lea
24 Fans
12:08 PM on 05/13/2012
it may have to be really cloudy for that to happen , R.I.P. to the victims .
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icesailor
170 Fans
09:49 AM on 05/13/2012
A "Bucaneer" amphibian (seaplane) is a high wing aircraft. A Piper Cherokee PA-28 is a low wing aircraft. If the Cherokee was descending and overtaking the Bucaneer, neither pilot may have seen the other until the collision.

Ionce read of an aircraft incident where an aircraft was on approach to a field and speaking with the tower. There was another plane on final approach that was on final and directly above the first. They were on a straight line collision course. The lower pilot thought the plane above was behind him but became concerned about the radio traffic from the pilot "behind" him. He looked out the side window and saw the shadow of the other plane on the ground directly above him.

The lower aircraft had a high wing and the higher plane had a low wing. So, neither could see the other in their respective blind spots.

VFR, Visual Flight Rules can become problematical under certain conditions. They may have been flying in uncontrolled airspace and not using transponders that show the plane, speed and altitude.
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MJinCanada
Safe from zombies until my 2nd cup of coffee
1801 Fans
04:02 PM on 05/13/2012
Thanks for the information. You don't think about blind spots when it comes to aircraft, but they do have them.
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spinnerator
108 Fans
 
08:53 AM on 05/13/2012
Talk about a one in a million freak accident.
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scat
There, it is no longer empty
500 Fans
08:33 AM on 05/13/2012
BANK RIGHT.
Ok.... wait, his right or my right?
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hidenout3
185 Fans
09:52 AM on 05/13/2012
Moniker fits, doesn't it? Let's make fun of people dying in a tragic plane collision.
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SublimeAntithesis
176 Fans
10:01 AM on 05/13/2012
I believe they were responding to "How could this happen?" and not being flippant.
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fumes
Midnight Toker
1523 Fans
07:35 AM on 05/13/2012
almost happened to me!

i was doing the west even/east odd thing and the other guy wasn't. new york center got the call that this guy was entering their airspace and i of course heard the transmission. with no time to spare i called nyc knowing this guy would hear me too and alerted all to the error and apprised them of my pulling up and over westerly. almost simultaneously he flew just under my left wing. nyc never said a word (reagan years).. and the cessna radioed a BIG THX.
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Reg Corleonis
Life is ending one minute at a time
133 Fans
06:34 AM on 05/13/2012
Booze. Not weed. If it was weed they would have had no need to fly.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
gr8bsn
An equal opportunity offender since 1978
164 Fans
04:36 AM on 05/13/2012
What a sad story. As a pilot myself, I can tell you that even in a busy sky, the odds of one plane colliding with another plane are about as good as shooting a moving bullet out of the sky with a smaller bullet... okay, maybe a bit better, but still... it's rare. You've got a huge environment to maneuver around in. If you can see the other plane, you can avoid it.
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onkelpetey
58 Fans
08:07 AM on 05/13/2012
I was told that private planes do not have tower and radar support and therefore are more likely to crash. Is this true?
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TiredOfIgnorance
85 Fans
09:28 AM on 05/13/2012
Any aircraft may take advantage of "radar services" but typically smaller aircraft do not take advantage of this opportunity. There are many places, however, that do not have "radar coverage" (particularly at lower altitudes) and so services would be more about keeping in radio contact than actual monitoring of the flight by radar.

All that said, however, BOTH pilots' responsibility is to "see and avoid" in conditions which warrant it, i.e. good visibility.
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bleeding heart and proud
152 Fans
09:45 AM on 05/13/2012
No, it is not true. In VFR conditions (pilot flies visually, not by instruments) the pilot may ask for flight following (radar) but it is not mandatory. At controlled airports, all traffic (private and commercial) contact the tower for permission to enter the control zone. Mid-air collisions are very rare but has happened even to airliners who are flying IFR (by reference to instruments).

Most midair collisions happen at uncontrolled airports (no air traffic controllers) where pilots use their eyes to spot other aircraft and use their radios to inform other pilots about what they are doing. Even in these conditions, collisions are very rare. Instruments to detect other traffic are becoming more popular in private aircraft and their accuracy is improving. Mid-air collisions while cruising (not landing) are even more rare and seldom happen.

Flying is all about reducing risks and most pilots do all they can to do so. When the rules are followed and the pilot does not go beyond his capabilities (like flying IFR when he is a VFR pilot) it is a very safe activity.

Hope this helps you understand.
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Blackspeare
372 Fans
09:53 AM on 05/13/2012
About the same odds for ships to collide. It's always operator inattention and the culprit is complacency.
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pslcitizen
I intend to live forever. So far, so good.
580 Fans
02:40 AM on 05/13/2012
RIP to all involved.
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larmarch5
3999 Fans
01:44 AM on 05/13/2012
The planes were flying to and from different places in Saskatchewan. That is very bizarre that their x, y, and z axes would intersect at that moment in time.
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Rusty Bucket
Intensely interested in the human condition!
12 Fans
06:20 AM on 05/13/2012
That is just what I was thinking. You get the same thing on a country road at 3 a.m. in the morning in the middle of nowhere. Not supposed to be another car around for a thousand miles and what do you get. Bang! Right at the intersection. There is just no accounting for fate.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Blackspeare
372 Fans
09:54 AM on 05/13/2012
No, that's just bad luck!
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Peter Klos
42 Fans
11:47 AM on 05/13/2012
x,y,z and t dimensons. (x,y,z are space axes - t is time)
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Kozy Mel
4 Fans
01:16 AM on 05/13/2012
So why is it when a Cherokee and a Buccaneer collide mid-air, the best you can post is a static picture of a Harvard??

Try this: search "Piper Cherokee images"/"Lake Buccaneer images".

It's AMAZING, this Google thing.
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n329df
18 Fans
02:16 AM on 05/13/2012
not a Harvard, it is a Nanchang CJ-6
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Kozy Mel
4 Fans
02:26 AM on 05/13/2012
I didn't think so, but a Harvard was a good guess.

The fins inside the cowl made me wonder.

Thx
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Stef Cassandra
11 Fans
12:07 AM on 05/13/2012
you got the whole sky to fly in!

i can drive around in a small parking lot in the mall and not crash into anyone

how do two airplanes in the limitless sky collide?
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
no no
33 Fans
12:25 AM on 05/13/2012
It's pretty easy really. Most pilots fly at some fix altitude between 2000-5000 feet. So all you need is 2 pilots who happened to have chosen 3000 feet as their altitude for that day and bam, they crash.
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gr8bsn
An equal opportunity offender since 1978
164 Fans
04:33 AM on 05/13/2012
But if you're flying on opposite headings (east vs west) you're supposed to be at either an odd or even numbered altitude accordingly to avoid such an incident. This gives 1000 feet of spacing.
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MJinCanada
Safe from zombies until my 2nd cup of coffee
1801 Fans
12:28 AM on 05/13/2012
If it was low cloud cover, I could understand it, but yeah, that's part of what makes it so shocking and sad.
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flightsmith
4 Fans
 
01:55 AM on 05/13/2012
There is a regulation called the hemispheric rule. This requires all aircraft flying under visual flight rules (VFR) to fly at specific altitudes and those flying on instrument flight plans (IFR) at another.

VFR= Westbound 360-180, eastbound 1-179 degrees; even thousands+ 500ft. i.e 4,500ft. Eastbound= Odd thousands+500ft.

IFR= Even thousands westbound, and odd thousands eastbound.

The chances of this occurring are so small it's hard to comprehend. I've flown a small float plane in Canada's backcountry and the rules don't always apply. And something like this isn't avoidable as they likely never saw the other aircraft coming.
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PoppaG
297 Fans
12:04 AM on 05/13/2012
sad sad day
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Tom Servo
Please Proceed
1750 Fans
 
10:35 PM on 05/12/2012
Condolences to friends and family.
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KNW
49 Fans
09:51 PM on 05/12/2012
Not to take away from the tragedy of this, but.. how do you crash into ANYTHING in Saskatchewan?
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legaleyeleft
Cons want Somalia here at home
508 Fans
10:15 PM on 05/12/2012
My thoughts exactly. So tragic.
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GaryNOVA
Fear My Micro-bio!!!!!!!!
793 Fans
 
11:16 PM on 05/12/2012
lol...ehemmm.. I mean. very tragic.
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