The death of a Sudbury pilot and two passengers hit hard among local aviation and legal circles Wednesday.
Leo Arseneau, an accomplished family lawyer and member of the Sudbury Flying Club, perished along with his wife, Mary Lou, and his wife's caregiver after his Piper six-seater plane went down in the bush near the mouth of the French and Pickerel Rivers on Tuesday.
The three were bound for Winston-Salem, NC, but reported engine problems after leaving the Sudbury Airport and crashed while attempting to execute an emergency landing.
News of the tragedy was showing on the faces of many lawyers at the Sudbury Courthouse Wednesday afternoon.
"He and I go back a ways, quite a ways," reflected Robert Beckett, a long-time Sudbury lawyer. "He just reached 35 years (in law) at the end of last year. He was one of my golf buddies."
Another veteran solicitor, Richard Pharand, described Arseneau as a doting husband and skilled attorney.
"In recent years, he was his wife's caregiver," said Pharand. "He was basically taking care of her. He would go to the office and do work and spend all his other time with his wife. He told me he had been at the hospital when she was there and spent a lot of time at her bedside."
Arseneau was involved in a number of noteworthy cases, said Pharand, including a civil suit against disgraced financial adviser Pierre Montpellier, who was convicted of conning 128 people out of $5.3 million in 2004.
"He acted on behalf of the victims and got them a good result," he said.
The suit, filed in 1999, sought $25 million in damages. In 2004, Arseneau obtained $4.6 million on behalf of more than 70 Sudburians who said they were cheated out of investments.
Arseneau also represented the parents of Davinder Kochar, killed in 2005, in their quest to have retroactive child support paid by their daughter's husband, Harinder Kochar, for the couple's three children.
A court ruled in 2011 that $200,000 was owed to the elder Kochars on behalf of their grandchildren.
As lawyers grieved a popular colleague and mentor, those who frequent local hangars and runways were also feeling the loss.
Michael Rocha, chief flight instructor with the Central North Flying Club, said he was more of an acquaintance than a close friend but would often encounter Arseneau at the airport, especially in the days when the Sudbury Flying Club -- of which Arseneau was a member -- was more active.
"The airplane community is a small one, so you get to know each other," he said.
Arseneau was a seasoned pilot, said Rocha, and used his plane mostly for long trips, as opposed to shorter leisure outings.
"The first time I met Leo was back around 1998, so he's probably been flying for over 20 years," he said.
The Piper Saratoga flown by Arseneau was a "higher performance" type of single-engine plane that is "designed more for long trips than sightseeing," said Rocha.
Anytime a plane goes down it sends a chill through the flying community, said Rocha, especially if someone is killed.
"You feel bad for everybody involved, and it gives you a bit of a pause for thought and reflection," he said.
Aviators are "are a very safety-oriented group of people, very conscious of safety," said the flight instructor. "And flying is one of the safest modes of transportation -- I've always said it's more dangerous driving to the airport than flying. But accidents still happen, and it's very unfortunate."
July 13, 2012: Piper PA-32RT-300T, C-GDWA, Forced landing on highway
Joseph Arseneau's Piper Lance small engine aircraft parked in a parking
lot at the Sarnia Chris Hadfield Airport after being forced to make an
emergency landing on westbound Highway 402 Friday night. The right wing
tip sustained damage after being clipped by an oncoming Dodge Caravan on
the highway. The female driver of the van, her four passengers,
Arseneau and his four passengers were all unharmed. Arseneau and his
family was enroute from Sudbury, according to OPP.
Submitted photo of the Piper Lance small engine aircraft after it landed
just after 10 p.m. Friday night.
The foreground shows a broken piece from the tip of pilot Joseph
Arseneau's Piper Lance small engine aircraft, which sustained damage
after being clipped by an oncoming Dodge Caravan Friday night on
westbound Highway 402. The carrier is currently parked in a parking lot
at the Sarnia Chris Hadfield Airport. Pieces from the tip lie
underneath the aircraft. According to the Huron Flight Centre, the small
plane will be moved to the airside of the airport after an insurance
company examines the carrier on Monday.
A close up of Joseph Arseneau's Piper Lance small engine aircraft,
parked in a parking lot at the Sarnia Chris Hadfield Airport, shows
damage sustained to the right wing tip. Pieces from the tip lie
underneath the aircraft. According to the Huron Flight Centre, the small
plane will be moved to the airside of the airport after an insurance
company examines the carrier on Monday.
A small airplane was forced to make an emergency landing on Highway 402 Friday night.
Joseph Arseneau, a 62-year-old pilot, was travelling with four family
members enroute to Sarnia Chris Hadfield Airport from Sudbury in a
Piper Lance small engine aircraft around 9 p.m. Friday, said Const. John
Reurink of the OPP.
Reurink said Arseneau experienced an onboard electrical failure that left him circling the area to locate the airport.
“He was without electrical power for about an hour,” said Reurink.
“He’s not aware of this area, being from Sudbury.”
After losing navigation directions and contact with Toronto Air
Traffic Control, Arseneau contacted Sarnia Police around 9:50 p.m.
“He made a call to our switchboard from a private cell phone because
his power supply was interrupted and his radio and navigation system was
down,” said Staff Sgt. Chris Oram of Sarnia Police.
Arseneau, running low on fuel, made an emergency landing on westbound
402 between Oil Heritage Road and Mandaumin Road exits with the
assistance of Sarnia Police and Lambton OPP.
“The original plan was to get (Arseneau) to the airport, but he notified us that he was running out of fuel,” said Oram.
After Arseneau’s aircraft landed successfully on the highway, west of
Plowing Match Road, a Dodge Caravan clipped the ring wing of the
carrier.
Reurink said the female driver of the van, 40-year-old Elizabeth
Goodall of Sarnia, and four other passengers, were uninjured, while the
driver side of the van sustained some damage.
“Thank goodness that nobody was hurt. That’s 10 lives... I get
goosebumps just thinking about it,” said Judy Ryan of Huron Flight
Centre in Sarnia.
“The plane could have gone up on flames. There could have been 10 fatalities.”
She added that Arseneau would have been disadvantaged and “flying blind” without electrical power.
“The weigh scales on the 402 were probably the only things he could see,” said Ryan.
Transport Canada is investigating the source of the onboard electrical failure, according to Reurink.
Oram said he has never heard of an emergency landing on the highway during his 29-year career with Sarnia Police.
Arseneau’s Piper Lance small engine aircraft sustained minimal damage
to the tip of the right wing and is currently parked at the Sarnia
Chris Hadfield Airport.
“The highway is open to ground traffic now, but closed to air traffic,” joked Oram.
Source: http://www.niagarafallsreview.ca
The 402 could sometimes use someone to direct traffic, but last night the busy highway needed an air traffic controller.
Lambton OPP say a plane made an emergency landing on the highway near Wyoming, just east of Sarnia.
Officers
say it was around 9 p.m. when 62-year-old pilot Joseph Arseneau of
Sudbury was flying with four of his family members in his Piper Lance
small engine plane to Sarnia Chris Hadfield Airport when the aircraft
went into on-board electrical failure.
Police
say without his instruments to help him, Arseneau circled continuously
to find the airport, but without his signalling the runway lights
wouldn't come on.
The
OPP says it was around 10 p.m. that Arseneau was running low on fuel
and was forced to make an emergency landing in the westbound lanes of
the 402 between Oil Heritage Road and Mandaumin Road Exits.
Officers say Arseneau brought the plane down successfully, but even though they were on the ground the drama wasn't over yet.
Police
say once the aircraft was on the roadway a passing van clipped the
right wing tip. Police say the 40-year-old driver of the van, Elizabeth
Goodall of Sarnia and her four passengers were not hurt. Arseneau and
his family were also uninjured by the collision.
Officers say the van and the wing tip of the plane did sustain some damage.
OPP say the westbound lanes of the 402 were closed until the plane and the vehicle could be removed.
A picture from the scene shows the small plane sitting on the highway bathed in the glow of emergency vehicles' lights.
Transport Canada has now begun an investigation into what may have caused the on-board electrical failure in the aircraft.
Source: http://www.am980.ca
The steady hands of a Sudbury pilot faced with an on-board electrical failure landed his small airplane on Hwy 402 just outside of Sarnia on Friday night without any injuries.
Lambton OPP said Joseph Arseneau, 62, of Sudbury was flying his Piper Lance aircraft with four family members to Chris Hadfield Airport in Sarnia when at about 9 p.m. the electrical failure happened.
He circled the plane for an hour looking for the airport, but without his on-board instruments, he couldn't signal the airport to light up the runway.
For an hour, he continued circling the plane. At 10 p.m., now low on fuel, he had to make an emergency landing – and did in the westbound lanes of Hwy. 402 between Oil Heritage Rd.and Maudamin Rd.
While making the landing, his right wing clipped a van. The 40-year old female driver and her four passengers were not injured.
Both the plane and the van were damaged in the collision.
Transport Canada is investigating.