Police provide updates on plane crashes

All appears to be well after two recent light aircraft crashes in the Algoma District.

“There were no fatalities. There were no injuries,” said Sault Ste. Marie OPP Cst. Brian Speakman, speaking to SooToday regarding a June 21, 2018 incident involving a light aircraft in the area of Ile Parisienne, a remote undeveloped island located in the middle of Whitefish Bay, about 25 kilometres northwest of Sault Ste Marie.

The aircraft came down on the beach on Ile Parisienne, Speakman said.

Two vessels from the Sault OPP detachment responded to the call, however, the plane’s two occupants, the pilot and one passenger, had been picked up by “other parties and brought to the mainland, to Goulais River,” Speakman said.

It is believed the plane flipped over on the beach, but police did not have specific details regarding damage to the aircraft, or the cause of the crash.

An earlier incident took place May 27, 2018, involving a float plane which went down in Bruce Bay near Bruce Mines. The male pilot, who was the lone occupant of the plane, received no injuries, East Algoma OPP Const. Marilyn Cameron told SooToday.

Weather conditions did not play a factor.

“It basically lost power and crashed into the water. The pilot had a shoulder harness on,” Cameron said.

The pilot, a Blind River man, had 30 years of flying experience, with no previous issues with the float plane involved.

“Local residents assisted him. They went to the crash scene right away and assisted him in getting the plane to shore,” Cameron said.

The two light aircraft incidents were among three known crashes in the Sault and area in the past few months.

The first was tragic.

The Sault’s Gilbert Belair, 67, and passenger John Paul Finck, 76, died when Belair’s registered homebuilt aircraft crashed at Sanderson Municipal Airport in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, May 5, 2018.

Belair’s plane “stalled and nose dived to the ground near the runway,” wrote Tony Molinaro, a US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) spokesperson, in an email to SooToday after that fatal crash.