News provided by City News 1130 – link to full story and updates
BY TARNJIT PARMAR AND JONATHAN SZEKERES, Posted 11 December 2019
SUMMARY
- While there is still no confirmation about those involved, some media reports suggest three victims were killed
- Investigators are struggling to comb through a huge debris field left behind by the plane crash
- The flight was a private flight leaving California and headed to Nanaimo
GABRIOLA ISLAND (NEWS 1130) – Investigators continue to struggle with a huge debris field as they try to figure out the story leading up to Tuesday evening’s deadly plane crash on Gabriola Island.
While there is still no confirmation about the number of people involved, some media reports suggest three victims were killed when the plane went down.
According to the Transportation Safety Board, the plane was completely torn apart due to the impact of the crash, and it’s still not clear who owned the plane. The plane was approaching Nanaimo Airport when it went down, and it was travelling from Eastern Sierra Regional Airport in Bishop, California.
Ben Loree is a friend of one of the people involved in the crash, Alex Bahlsen who was an experienced pilot and well known in the community of Carley, Alberta.
“Where we grew up, it was about four miles apart. We got to know him through flying and aviation. He was very well known, definitely in the flying community,” Loree says. “He would host a few fly-ins once in a while so a lot of the town knew him that way.”
Marcella Bernardo@Bernardo1130
.@TSBCanada reports impact of #GabriolaIsland plane crash so severe, investigators can’t confirm how many people killed. No one has been identified, but the private/pleasure flight was headed to #Nanaimo from an airport in Bishop, California. @NEWS1130
Bahlsen was an experienced flight instructor, charter pilot and had previously owned an airstrip before moving out of Alberta.
Loree says Bahlsen had just moved to Vancouver in the last year to live with his wife and left behind a lot of close friends.
“He used to own a flying center, they had a few airplanes they could train on,” he adds. “So a lot of people around here learned to fly from Alex.”
He says it was a shock to learn Bahlsen was killed in the plane crash, adding it’s been difficult for many in the small community to accept.
“It’s hard news to take. He was good. We were friends and he was one of the guys you would look up to,” Loree says. “If you had a question, he would be the one who knew the answer or would point you in the right direction. So it was really sad to hear the news.”
Bahlsen was born in Germany and moved to Cayley about thirty years ago.
First responders first responded to reports of the downed plane at around 6 pm on Tuesday evening. The B.C Coroners Service and the RCMP have confirmed multiple people were killed when the small plane crashed in a wooded residential area.