A Canadian Ranger says he was hoping for the best when he rushed to the plane that crashed near Fort Smith Tuesday, leaving six people dead and one injured.
Sgt. Gordon Rothnie, who is from the South Slave town, said he and four colleagues received the call and went by snowmobile to help at the crash site.
“From my perspective, you go in with a lot of optimism to assist in any way you can, do the best you can, depending on the circumstances and it was a difficult situation,” Rothnie said in an interview Thursday.
“I refused to accept what I was witnessing. Even going to bed that night I was still wanting to search.”
Rothnie, 50, said everybody knows everyone in Fort Smith, a community of close to 2,500 people, and he knew the victims but didn’t reveal their names.
He said the connection he has to the community makes this an intimate loss.
“When something like this happens you’re connected. It’s not like you’re anonymous. There’s always some connection,” he said.
“You’re not impartial. There’s an intimacy. Your children played together or you knew them so I would say the painful part is for the loved ones who one moment, you have someone dear to you and then they’re just taken away.”
The charter plane had just taken off from Fort Smith and was en route to the Diavik Diamond Mine on Tuesday morning, when it hit the ground and caught fire.
The territorial coroner’s office has not identified the victims of the crash, but some family members have.
Clayton Balsillie says his sister Diane Balsillie was among those killed.
She and three others who died worked at the mine, and two were crew members with Northwestern Air Lease.
One mine worker survived and was airlifted to hospital in Yellowknife.
The Transportation Safety Board is investigating and released photos of the crash site Thursday.
The pictures show the plane severely damaged, its fuselage tattered, lying in a heavily wooded area.
—By Bill Graveland, The Canadian Press, with files from Jeremy Simes and Steve Lambert