Vancouver Passenger Plane Crashes Beside Runway

Yesterday afternoon, at around 4:10 pm, a Vancouver charter plane crashed on the main road beside the Vancouver International Airport in Richmond B.C. The 7-passengers and 2 pilots were immediately rushed to the hospital once medical crews arrived about 4 minutes after the crash. If not for the heroics of the some of the bystanders who witnessed the crash and started pulling people out before the medical crews arrived, some lives may have been lost. 

Sadly, the RCMP have confirmed that Luc Fortin, 44, from North Vancouver has died in the hospital. "Despite all possible medical efforts, he was pronounced dead at Vancouver General Hospital about five hours later, at 9:10 p.m.," said a statement released by the B.C. Coroners office on Friday morning. All of the seven passengers in the plane were taken to the hospital and the two crew members, and two people who sustained injuries  in a car stuck by the plane. Two people remain in critical  condition, two others were discharged overnight, and four were in stable condition. There was still no word about the two people who were in the car, or on the condition of a pedestrian who was taken to the hospital after reportedly being struck by debris from the destroyed plane. 

The Beechcraft King Air 100 was only about fifteen minutes into it's flight when it started developing a problem. So the pilot corresponded with flight control and requested an emergency landing and they were given clearance for runway 26. On it's approach the aircraft banked hard to the left and crashed 900 meters short of the runway. Landing on Richmond's Russ Baker Way and hitting a lamp post and a car. 

This was a very unusual crash, and the cause it still left unexplained. In recordings of the conversation of the pilot and the air traffic controllers, everything seems calm and typical. He also even turned down the request for emergency services to be on scene. The cockpit voice recorder was immediately recovered and sent to Ottawa for analysis. The pilot had reported that an oil indicator light came on. However that didn't seem like a big deal, it ended up being very tragic. Lovelace, a veteran pilot spoke out about the situation and said that something catastrophic must have happened in the last thirty seconds of flight, because the pilot was very, very close to making a landing. Everyone wants to know what happened because it just doesn't make sense. 

My Thoughts

I think the heroics of the bystanders that all witnessed and helped out after the crash should be recognized by the city of Vancouver. If not for them, more lives may not have been saved on that tragic day. They were truly the first responders, because emergency crews didn't arrive for about 4 minutes later. Jet fuel burns so hot that is hard to even be withing 20 meters of it, and these people went right up to the raging fire and black smoke and started pulling people out of the wreckage. I am also very interested to find out the cause of this accident because it seemed as though it was just a normal incident that happens all of the time in air transportation, and it didn't have an effect until 30 seconds before landing. Even experts cant think of a possible reason for the crash of flight 204 on Thursday afternoon.