As night approached Monday an expanded search team of 15 aircraft had yet to find a single trace of an experienced chopper pilot who went missing near Hope last Friday.
The unidentified 61-year-old man took off from Langley airport in an Aerospatiale A350 helicopter about 6:30 p.m., planning to fly to a residence near Kelowna according to reports. Low clouds hovered over Hope at the time of the man’s last recorded cellphone signal, which means he might have tried to fly close to the ground or land for safety, said George Miller, Langley Airport manager.
The pilot — who officials won’t name because of the wishes of his family — “has done this trip a number of times, and he’s very familiar with the Okanagan,” Miller said.
Miller said the man has been flying out of Langley for at least 15 years, and “undoubtedly he’s a good pilot.”
The man didn’t file a flight plan but he did have a “flight itinerary” — which is an unofficial safety measure consisting of notifying another person of your route plans, without having to check in with authorities after a safe landing.
“It would be unusual for me [to fly such a route at nightfall],” Miller said. “For him I don’t know, but I just think that’s late. It’s hard to say what his intentions were.”
Search spokesman Lieut. Trevor Reid said Monday’s addition of a CC-130 Hercules military aircraft to a team of 15 military and civilian craft would help expand the search area, currently focused on the densely forested mountains and valleys between Hope and Kelowna.
Reid said officials will not specifically identify the missing chopper, however industry sources indicated to The Province it is a red Aerospatiale A350 which was de-registered by a commercial operator in August 2011. It’s believed that aircraft was sold soon after.
Transport Canada registration documents show that aircraft has been operated by three different companies since it was imported to B.C. in 2007.
That aircraft is not currently listed in registry documents by Transport Canada, but Reid said “from our knowledge, [the missing chopper] is registered.”
The RCMP is not currently involved in the missing aircraft investigation and won’t speculate about any flight details, a spokesman said.
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