Investigators are trying to pinpoint the cause of the small plane crash on Canada Day just outside Winnipeg that killed two members of the Royal Canadian Air Force.
Flying conditions were ideal on Friday morning, when the Piper PA-28 Cherokee went down, said Steven Sadler, president of the Springfield Flying Club, owner and operator of the Lyncrest Airport from which the two men – Captain Bradley Ashcroft, 27, and Captain Zachary Cloutier-Gill, 28 – took off.
The two men were not military pilots and were not on duty at the time of the crash. It has not been determined who was piloting the plane when it crashed, but Capt. Ashcroft had a pilot's licence and had recently gone up in the same aircraft with someone else.
"We don't know exactly what happened," said David Lavallée, spokesman for the 1 Canadian Air Division and Canadian NORAD Region headquarters in Winnipeg, to which both men were posted.
A team from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada is on the scene investigating the accident.
"This is a sad day for the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Canadian Armed Forces," Major-General Christian Drouin, commander of the 1 Canadian Air Division and the Canadian NORAD Region, said in a news release. "We have lost two members of our military family who served their country well. Our thoughts and prayers are with their families, friends and loved ones, whom we are working to support in the wake of this tragedy."
Jim Oke, president of the Winnipeg-area chapter of the Recreational Aircraft Association of Canada, said the group owned and operated the four-passenger Piper Cherokee.
"I flew recently with [Capt. Ashcroft] once or twice to demonstrate the aircraft and give him some tips on flying it," Mr. Oke said.
The plane was between 20 and 25 years old, and was donated about 18 months ago to the Winnipeg chapter of the RAA by a husband and wife who had decided to no longer practise their hobby, he said, adding that the aircraft was in good shape and the engine was in fine condition.
Capt. Ashcroft was a "nice, friendly, level-headed guy," Mr. Oke said. "He was technically attuned to aviation and things of that nature."
The native of Brandon, Man., had served more than nine years in the Canadian Armed Forces and was a member of the construction engineering branch at 1 Canadian Air Division, Capt. Lavallée said.
Capt. Cloutier-Gill, born in Chatham, N.B., was just shy of 12 years' service and was an air combat systems officer, he said.