Stuff Happens

Not a whole lot of excitment going on around here. Staying fairly busy with the flying however. There was one bit of excitment a couple days ago though. There was a private Cessna 206 floatplane that tried to land on the river, hit a submerged sandbar, and flipped over. I heard about it about a half hour after it happenned, and we all went out to gawk at it. You couldn't see much, it was several hundred metres away out in the middle of the river, resting upside down half in the water, half beached on a small island. There was only the pilot onboard I believe, an older gentleman, and he's ok from what I hear.

The airplane is totalled. They have since dragged it out to our place to keep it until they do something with it. One wing is ripped off, the tail is hanging off the back of the airplane, not much left holding it on, one of the floats is bent upwards, and one blade of the prop has been bent right down right at the route. Its quite the sorry sight. I'll get some pictures up when I decide to stop being lazy.

An interesting twist is that the other pilot was down at the maintenance base for the day with our 206 for its 50 hr inspection, and the crashed pilot's buddy showed up there looking for him. They were both headed north for a fishing trip, and the buddy decided to stop at the maintenance base (which is also a floatplane base, its situated on the edge of a small lake), but the doomed 206 float pilot didn't stop with him but continued on. Interesting to get two perspectives of the same event unfolding. Almost like the movie Vantage Point, or at least what I think that movie would be like, as I haven't seen it.

Apparently a floatplane crashed up here last year as well, or maybe two years ago, I'm not quite sure. Funny to think that stuff like this happens every now and then - its just the nature of the industry (particularly the private sector). No matter how much we try to tame it, stuff happens.