Into the Abyss (12 page)

Paul lifted Scott from the hatchway and half-walked, half-carried him along the trail to the fire. By the time the two arrived, the heat of the flames had melted a pit in the snow about six feet in diameter. Paul removed the parka Erik had given him and handed it to Scott before dragging the garment bag close to the fire’s warmth. Then Paul lowered his captor, as if a child, onto it. Larry, in turn, removed his overcoat and laid it over Scott.

No sooner had Paul set Scott down than he returned to the plane and climbed back inside to check on the other passengers. He shuffled
slowly through the cabin, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness. In front of him he saw two legs protruding, and on their feet, a pair of large winter boots. Women’s boots. Paul reached forward, tugged off the boots and tucked them under his arm. As he advanced through the dim interior he gathered other garments strewn about: a woman’s parka, a double-breasted trench coat, underwear, a sweater, a man’s pyjama top. He spied a small pocketknife, which he stuffed in the front pocket of his jeans.

Paul moved around touching everyone he could, but they were all dead. The passenger he’d tried to help earlier was among them now, but he heard someone else moaning. Realizing there was no way to get to the passenger from where he stood, Paul slipped back outside and circled around to the front of the plane where he was able to worm through the smashed side window. There, just behind the co-pilot’s seat, he found a man semi-conscious and moaning.

Paul pulled on him, but the plane seemed to be wrapped right around him and he wouldn’t budge.
His right arm was stuffed into the pilot’s flight bag. There was no way to free him.

He crawled from the plane once more and scooping up the garments he’d collected, returned to the fire. When he arrived he saw something that lifted his spirits. Larry stood in the soft glow of the flame, smoking. Paul wasted no time bumming a cigarette and when Larry handed over his package, Paul was ecstatic to see that it was almost full. He lit up a cigarette and savoured the sweet burn of smoke as he sucked it deep into his lungs.

“How about I hang on to these for you,” he offered and when Larry nodded, Paul felt as if he’d won the lottery. Cigarette dangling from his mouth, he pulled off Scott’s running shoes and shoved the winter boots onto his feet. Lifting Larry’s topcoat from Scott’s body, Paul laid the woman’s parka over him and stretched another article of clothing gently over his head before replacing the topcoat. Then Paul handed
the trench coat to Larry and the sweater to Erik, saving the pyjama top for himself. Once the men had pulled on their extra layers of clothing, Paul urged them to return to the bush to scavenge more wood for the fire.

Paul knew perhaps better than any of the others that keeping the fire going would be tough. The branches they dug from under the snow were wet and unlikely to burn well. But on a night like tonight a fire meant the difference between surviving and freezing to death. There had been more than a few nights in his past when Paul had been forced to sleep outside in the dead of winter and they’d scared the shit out of him.

Once again, he led Larry through the wilderness, loading his arms with as many branches as the blind, broken-toothed old man could handle before leading him back to the fire. When they arrived, Paul stoked the flames once more and they grew, spreading their warmth to the shocked and shivering survivors. For just a moment they allowed themselves to forget the monumental task that faced them all: staying alive until rescue arrived.

I
n the tiny High Prairie airport terminal building, forty-three-year-old airport manager Luella Wood checked her watch. It was ten minutes before 8 p.m.—the time Wapiti Flight 402 was scheduled to arrive. Standing 5′4″ and 135 pounds, with permed auburn hair and dark blue eyes, Luella had dreamt of being a pilot. Her uncle, a bush pilot, started giving her flying lessons when she was a teen. Sadly, Luella had become nauseous every time her uncle had taken her up. Though she’d been bitterly disappointed with not being able to pursue her dream, the idea of operating an airport had intrigued her enough that years later, she’d taken on the High Prairie airport manager’s job.

Inside the squat, single-storey brown terminal building, Alma Shaben sat awaiting the flight. She’d called the airport shortly after seven that evening to check whether the plane would be landing, telling Luella that Larry had phoned just before boarding to warn her that the pilot wasn’t sure if they would be able to get in. He’d suggested Alma check with Luella before leaving the house, so if she thought the weather was too bad for a landing, Alma could drive directly to Peace River.

Luella hadn’t been sure what to tell her.
Over the past few days the weather had truly been a concern and twice that week Wapiti flights hadn’t been able to land on account of it. At Luella’s 6:00 p.m. weather observation the ceiling had been low, though the horizontal visibility was good. She’d told Alma that if the pilot could get under the clouds he’d probably be okay, but they wouldn’t know one way or the other until the plane was overhead and the pilot contacted her by radio. At 7:30 Alma had decided to drive to the airport and wait.

As the flight’s scheduled arrival time approached, Luella left the terminal building and walked back to her trailer where the radio was located. She and her friend Edith Guild lived on the far side of the parking lot just a few hundred feet away from the terminal building. The town provided modest accommodation free to the airport manager, but during weeks like this one, it came at a price. More than nineteen centimetres of snow had fallen in the past two days and the wind had swept it into high drifts. Yesterday, Luella and Edith had cleared the sidewalks and had had to do so again this morning. The snow had been thigh-deep in places and so heavy and thick that it kept plugging the snow blower. That afternoon it had warmed up a little and though the plow hadn’t been out on the runway, Luella figured it was okay for takeoffs and landings. She’d checked it at 4:30 before a cargo flight was due to arrive. There’d been snow and slushy patches, but it hadn’t been icy. She’d walked the runway once more just before Alma arrived, and though a crust had started to form on top of the snow, Luella thought it still looked fine.

She stepped out of the freezing air and into the warmth of the trailer, yelling out: “
Edie, anybody call?”

Edith shook her head.

Luella checked the Universal Communications system, or UNICOM, to see if it was loud enough and making its usual humming noise. The UNICOM is a single frequency radio transceiver used at airports
with little air traffic and no control tower. Typically, pilots broadcast their location and intentions to Luella over the UNICOM as they were approaching the airport for a landing.

Around 8:05 p.m. Luella started to get an uneasy feeling.
She couldn’t explain it, but things just didn’t seem right.

“They’re late, like always,” Edie said, but Luella knew that this time something was wrong. She tried to raise the pilot on the UNICOM, but got no answer. Then she began to pace.

At 8:20 Peace River Flight Service called to ask if Luella had heard from Wapiti. She told them she hadn’t. Her worry turning to dread, she tried again to contact the flight. No answer. Peace River checked in several more times over the next twenty minutes until, at 8:40, they called to inform Luella that they were initiating a search. They’d notified both the Canadian military’s Rescue Coordination Centre in Edmonton and the RCMP, who would be sending a constable from the High Prairie detachment to the airport as soon as possible.

Sixteen minutes later, the pilot of
Pacific Western Airlines Flight 594 en route from Yellowknife to Edmonton was 20 kilometres northwest of High Prairie when a distinctive signal shrieked through his headset. When a downed aircraft’s emergency locator transmitter, or ELT, distress signal goes off there’s no mistaking it. It’s a series of shrill, rapid-fire, high-pitched tones that will kick the most placid of pilots into high gear. He immediately radioed Peace River Flight Service to report that he was picking up an ELT signal.

When Peace River called Luella with the news, her heart rose into her throat. She knew that the downed plane was 402. Her first call was to Maurice Pacquette, a local private pilot, owner of a nearby service station and her go- to guy if there were problems at the airport. She told him what had happened and asked him to come to check whether the UNICOM was working and if not, to try using a VHF radio inside one of the private planes parked along the tarmac
to contact Flight 402. Though it seemed to Luella like he took forever, Pacquette arrived just minutes later.

At 9:00 p.m. the Rescue Coordination Centre located on Canadian Forces Base Edmonton implemented a major air disaster plan, or MAJAID. The country’s highest level of emergency response to an aircraft disaster, it is initiated only if a plane carrying ten or more people is missing. Within fifteen minutes the military had completed a callout for a military search-and-rescue crew and an RCMP constable was knocking on Luella’s door. His orders were clear: to ensure a reliable communication link was established between the High Prairie airport and the Canadian military who would soon be launching an air search. The Rescue Coordination Centre also asked Luella to take local weather observations every fifteen minutes and relay them to the military.

She felt her anxiety skyrocket. She was no expert when it came to operating the UNICOM and the military’s request for continuous weather observations was in itself a monumental task. Sensing her concern, Pacquette offered to drive into town and get Dave Heggie, a local private pilot with radio experience who could man the UNICOM. No sooner had he left than the phone rang. It was Dale Wells.

Dale had been in his car driving to the Grande Prairie airport when his pager had gone off. He’d pressed his foot on the gas pedal and rapidly closed the distance to the Wapiti hangar. When he opened the door to its cavernous interior, Dale saw his mom and dad inside, their faces pale. Del broke the news.

It can’t be
, was Dale’s first thought when he heard that Peace River Flight Service had called to say that Flight 402 had gone down. Dale immediately got on the phone to the High Prairie airport manager.

“What happened to my plane?”

“We don’t know yet,” Luella told him, “but the
RCMP is here and the military has launched a search.”

“I’m getting on a plane,” Dale said. “What’s the weather like?”

“The clouds are low,” she told him, “but if you can get under them, you’ll have no trouble landing.”

“Okay, I’m on my way.”

After the RCMP constable departed, Luella sat slumped beside the radio. A stone’s throw away in the terminal building, family and friends were awaiting Flight 402. Reluctantly, Luella left the trailer and walked across the parking lot to the terminal building. There were three people in the main arrivals area: Alma; a younger woman, possibly in her late twenties or early thirties; and a slim First Nations man Luella didn’t recognize.

Finally, she found the courage to speak. “The plane has gone down.”

Alma’s face went white.

No one said a word.

“They’ve launched a search,” Luella added quietly.

Then, with leaden limbs, she headed outside to take another weather observation.

Alma doesn’t remember how long she sat in the terminal, only that she was unable or unwilling to move until Luella returned and urged everyone to go home.

“No sense waiting,” she’d told them. “We’ll call you the minute we hear anything.”

Insensible with shock, Alma had gotten into her car and driven home to an empty house. None of her five children still lived in High
Prairie, all having left to attend university or find jobs elsewhere. Three, still at university, lived with their father in his Edmonton apartment where he stayed during the work week. When Alma got home she picked up the telephone and called the number. Seventeen-year-old Joan, the youngest, answered. Struggling to keep her voice from breaking, Alma told her what had happened. One floor separated the residence from that of Larry’s close friend and colleague, Hugh Planche, Alberta’s Minister of Economic Development and Trade. The minute Joan hung up the phone, she and her brother James ran up the stairs to Planche’s apartment and banged loudly on his door. No one answered. Planche, who had been out celebrating the birth of his first grandchild, would not return for another hour. Joan jumped in her car and drove to the University of Alberta where her oldest brother, Larry, was taking a scuba diving course. He remembers being shocked to see his sister at the edge of the pool when he surfaced. Soaking wet and wrapped in a towel, he grabbed his clothes and raced back to the apartment with her. By then James had located Hugh’s wife, Sylvia, who worked in the premier’s office, and she’d called the premier’s chief of staff, Bob Giffin. Giffin, the province’s most senior bureaucrat, immediately got on the line to Premier Peter Lougheed at his home in Calgary.

“Stay on top of it,” Lougheed told him. “And
find out if any other government members from the north are on that plane.” Giffin called the homes of several northern MLAs who often flew home on Wapiti for the weekend. He confirmed the whereabouts of all but Grant Notley. When he called the Notley home in Fairview, Grant’s fourteen-year-old son answered. Giffin asked to speak to his mom.

“She’s on the highway heading home.”

Giffin asked his next question very carefully. “Is your dad there?”

“He’s staying overnight in Edmonton,” the boy said. “He’ll be home tomorrow.”

Giffin hung up the phone, but wanted to be sure. He placed a quick call to Ray Martin, the only other NDP member of the legislature and a close friend of Notley’s. Martin told him that he thought that
Grant had stayed over in Edmonton because the Wapiti flight had been fully booked. Satisfied, Giffin updated the premier, and then called John Tenzer, the Alberta government’s chief pilot. Giffin’s plan was to get Larry’s children, Hugh Planche and himself north as fast as possible. Tenzer told Giffin it wouldn’t happen that night; with the deteriorating weather conditions, he felt it was far too dangerous to fly. The chief pilot promised Giffin he’d keep him updated through the night, and that the government plane would take off the second it was safe to do so.