Investigators head to site of B.C. plane crash that killed 5

A Pacific Coastal Airlines Grumman Goose crashed on northern Vancouver Island, killing five people, rescue officials reported Sunday. Officials from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada will arrive on Vancouver Island on Monday to start investigating a small-plane crash that killed five people the day before.

Two people survived when the chartered Grumman Goose amphibious aircraft went down shortly after taking off from Port Hardy, B.C., at about 7 a.m. PT Sunday, bound for a logging camp on Chamiss Bay, near the village of Kyuquot on the west coast of the island.

Kelly Francis, spokeswoman for Seaspan International Ltd. in Vancouver, confirmed the passengers were company employees who were being flown into a remote logging site to load barges for transport. Their names are being withheld until their families have been notified, officials said.

Search-and-rescue crews had made contact with one of the survivors early Sunday afternoon via cellphone and text messages, but were unable to locate the crash site in the dense forest.

"The survivor could see the search aircraft, but it was five hours before the crash site was located in the heavy tree coverage," an official said, adding that the two survivors were taken to Comox.

The plane went down shortly after taking off from Port Hardy, B.C., bound for a logging camp on Chamiss Bay, on the west coast of Vancouver Island. (CBC)Lt.-Cmdr. Gerry Pash of the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Victoria said one survivor was in good condition, while the other was injured.

The Pacific Coastal Airlines flight was expected to last less than a half-hour, but 10 minutes after takeoff, the aircraft went down, with two hours worth of fuel aboard.

"Cellular telephone call and text messages are leading the searchers to the crash site which is on top of a mountain in mid-Vancouver Island," Pash told CBC News earlier in the afternoon.

"A person on the ground at the crash site is in cellular contact with a third party who is passing on information to the rescue co-ordination centre."

Search 'frustrating'

Pash called the day-long search "incredibly frustrating.

"He can see the search-and-rescue planes, but we can't find him," Pash said four hours into the search, noting that the terrain was extremely rugged.

Pash said the survivor described the aircraft as flying below his position and above a piece of logging equipment visible on the mountainside, suggesting he was near the top of a mountain.

Pash said there had been no signal from the plane's electronic locator transmitter.

The survivor was texting a friend, who was passing the information along to search-and-rescue officials, Pash said before the crash site was found.

"Search-and-rescue [personnel] are currently involved in a search for the aircraft, and there has been cellphone communication with a passenger on board," Pacific Coastal spokesman Spencer Smith confirmed mid-afternoon.

Pacific Coastal reported the flight missing to the rescue centre at 10 a.m. PT and conducted its own search before asking the rescue centre for assistance.

The rescue centre dispatched two aircraft — a Buffalo CC115 and a Cormorant helicopter — to take charge of the search.