A pilot was killed Wednesday after an aircraft reportedly identified as a Mooney M20 crashed near Saint-Georges Airport in Quebec following a Remembrance Day formation flight. The pilot, identified as 68-year-old Daniel Parent, was the sole occupant when the aircraft went down shortly after 11 a.m. in a wooded area near a residential neighborhood.
Parent was flying alongside five other members of the Club Aéronautique de Beauce, known as the CAB Boys. The pilots had participated in a missing-man formation honoring fallen military personnel during the city’s Remembrance Day ceremony. According to local reports, Parent’s airplane separated from the group as the aircraft returned toward the airport.
Witnesses Report Possible Engine Trouble
Resident Serge Doyon told TVA Nouvelles that he heard what appeared to be an engine intermittently losing and regaining power as the aircraft passed overhead. He reported seeing one airplane turn away from the formation before descending steeply toward the ground. Another witness, Dominique Maheux, also described seeing the aircraft veer right before the impact.
“Then it disappeared into the trees, and I saw a ball of fire, followed by black smoke,” Maheux told Global News.
Investigation Underway
Hugues Drouin, another pilot in the Remembrance Day formation, told Le Journal de Québec that the formation leader called for a position report from Parent but received no response. Drouin said the pilots had received specialized formation-flying training from a former military pilot and that Parent had performed the maneuver many times previously. He also confirmed there had been no midair collision. According to Drouin, a professional filmmaker aboard his aircraft recorded the incident, and the footage has been turned over to investigators.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada dispatched investigators to examine the Remembrance Day accident site and wreckage to determine the circumstances surrounding the accident. Authorities have not established a cause.
0 replies