KANANASKIS COUNTRY – Emergency crews have recovered the bodies of six people killed in a plane crash in Kananaskis Country Saturday (July 29).
The plane went down approximately five kilometres north of Kananaskis Village in a mountainous area on Friday (July 28) night, killing one pilot and five passengers on board.
“As you can imagine, recovering the bodies of the pilot and passengers was challenging due to the difficult terrain,” said Staff Sgt. Ryan Singleton of Canmore RCMP in a prepared statement in front of media.
“However, all six bodies have been recovered.”
The names of the deceased have not been released at this time.
The plane left the Springbank Airport just before 9 p.m. Friday and was en route to Salmon Arm, British Columbia, for a church function.
The RCMP said that after speaking with the families of the passengers, contact ended after 9:30 p.m.
The pilot and passengers inside the single-engine plane, a Piper PA32, were reported overdue at approximately 1 a.m. on Saturday. A search party was sent out and the crew honed in on the emergency locator transmitter to the site crash.
Alberta Parks Mountain Rescue and Alpine Helicopter responded.
The search was assisted by the Royal Canadian Air Force, which used a CC-130H Hercules from 435 Transport and Rescue Squadron to conduct a search.
When the downed plane was located, it took until about 2:30 p.m. on Saturday to recover the bodies and pieces of the aircraft.
“Unfortunately, it’s a fairly large event and it’s not common to have an event such as this,” said Mike Koppang, public safety specialist with Alberta Parks Mountain Rescue.
Koppang praised the “incredible team” – which also included Alberta Health Services, Alberta Conservation, and Kananaskis Emergency Services – that worked together in the recovery in rough terrain.
A spokesperson at the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) said they deployed two investigators to the scene and took over the investigation.
The popular Heart Creek Day Use Area, which was used as a staging area for emergency crews, has reopened.
Earlier this month, a float plane crashed into the Spray Lakes reservoir in Kananaskis Country.
The pilot and lone occupant, a man in his 60s, was uninjured in the low-level crash on July 5.
