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Rescuers will attempt to reach bodies of crash victims
August 2, 2011 By Carey Fredericks
Aug. 2, 2011, Prince Rupert, B.C. - The names of two B.C. men and a man originally from Quebec who were killed in a weekend helicopter crash in a rugged area of northwest B.C. have been released.
Sunday's crash killed the pilot, 35-year-old Randy Ken Lambert of Abbotsford, and two passengers, 40-year-old Colin Dionne of Powell River and 32-year-old Mathieu Lefebvre-Masse who lived Lund, B.C. but was originally from Quebec.
The Vancouver Island Helicopter Bell 407 was doing a mining survey when it crashed near Meziadin Lake on Nelson Glacier.
High winds and poor conditions halted recovery efforts Monday, but Bill Yearwood of the Transportation Safety Board said the
weather improved enough for a recovery team to head to the area Tuesday.
"They were getting a helicopter and mountain climbing crews to retrieve the bodies and subsequent to that we're hoping that…we
can starting bringing some of the wreckage out,'' he said.
Yearwood said an investigator from his office will also be on the site, but it will be difficult to check the scene because the aircraft is badly broken up and debris is spread about 300 metres down a steep mountainside.
He said the helicopter didn't have a flight recorder, but was equipped with a digital fuel control system that might help determine the cause of the crash.
"It gathers a fair amount of data on the engine performance and the demands on the engine, so we are hopeful that we'll get some
information on the engine, what it was doing, and what the pilot may have been requiring of it at the time,'' he said.
