January 27, 1992
NANAIMO, British Columbia (AP) _ A seaplane carrying construction workers to their job crashed in a ″big flash of fire″ and sank Monday, killing seven of the nine people aboard, according to a witness and authorities.
Two survivors were plucked from Newcastle Channel by a boat.
The twin-engine Beech 18 floatplane apparently exploded on impact during takeoff in the channel, said Royal Canadian Mounted Police Sgt. Peter Montague in Vancouver.
The bodies of the seven dead men (Courtland Scott Paul) and the floatplane were recovered late Monday afternoon. Six bodies were in the plane, and none were immediately identified.
Nanaimo is on Vancouver Island across the Straight of Georgia from Vancouver and about 55 miles northwest of the British Columbia capital of Victoria.
Sandy Kandall, British Columbia ferry system terminal manager at Nanaimo, saw the crash while driving to work. He said the plane went down within about 1,000 feet of the ferry terminal, and about 700 feet from his car.
″The first observation I had was this ball of fire, then a large cloud of black smoke,″ Kandall said.
The plane was owned by Air Rainbow, which has operational headquarters in New Westminster, said Stephen Rybak, a spokesman for Transport Canada, the equivalent of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.
The aircraft was on a charter flight to the logging community of Port Mellon, on Howe Sound north of Vancouver, said an Air Rainbow official who would not give his name.
Montague said the passengers were all construction workers headed to a job at a mill in Port Mellon.
RCMP and the Canadian Transportation Safety Board were investigating the accident.
