New RCAF plane completes 1st operational parachute rescue deep in B.C. mountains

Members of the Royal Canadian Air Force are celebrating the successful rescue of a pilot who crashed deep in the mountains north of Prince George, B.C.

The mission involved Canada's newest fixed-wing search-and-rescue aircraft. The CC-295 Kingfisher carried out its first operational parachute jump on Wednesday after only three weeks on the job.

The air force says the Kingfisher, which is based out of Canadian Forces Base Comox on Vancouver Island, is specifically designed for search-and-rescue operations, and comes equipped with sensors that allow crews to locate people or objects from more than 40 kilometres away, even in low-light conditions.

"The modernization on this plane is night and day compared to what we used to fly previously," said Capt. Greg Harris, who piloted the Kingfisher during the mission.

The aircraft officially went into operation on May 1, Harris said, and completed its first operational jump Wednesday to help save a civilian pilot who had crashed near Mount Kinney. 

Harris said the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Victoria notified them at around 1:30 p.m. of a spot beacon being activated by a single-passenger airplane, indicating a crash.

An RCMP helicopter reached the crash site, approximately 130 kilometres northeast of Prince George, and recovered the injured pilot.

Search-and-rescue technicians then parachuted out of the Kingfisher, approximately 10 kilometres south of where the plane crashed, and established a temporary care site.

RCMP then took the injured pilot to the SAR technicians. They stabilized the patient, who was then picked up by a CH-149 Cormorant helicopter and flown to Prince George for treatment.

'Ended up being pretty challenging'

Harris credited his colleagues for handling challenging terrain and bad weather. 

"You never know what you're going to get, and it's never simple," he said. "There's always variables that come up that you weren't thinking were going to come up. So it ended up being pretty challenging."

Master Cpl. Alain Goguen was among the SAR technicians who parachuted out of the plane carrying medical equipment and other gear.

Goguen said the technology on the Kingfisher helped them assess where they were going to land, saving them precious minutes in a mission where time was of the essence.

Harris said with stormy weather looming, they were minutes away from not being able to have the SAR technicians jump, and the injured pilot would have had to wait "a substantial time."

He said he and his colleagues were thrilled to play a role in getting the pilot to safety, working closely with RCMP and the crew of the CH-149 Cormorant. He added that the mission allowed them to test their new aircraft in a real-life situation.

"A lot of time these situations where airplanes crashed, the outcome is often not a good one, so the fact that the first operational jump of the Kingfisher was so successful and the outcome was so positive, it led to a pretty jubilant base here," Harris said.

Goguen described the rescue in more straightforward terms. 

"That's what we trained for, so that's what we did. And things worked out."

LISTEN | Harris and Goguen describe their mission: 

Radio West11:00New Royal Canadian Air Force aircraft completes first operational parachute rescue near Prince George

The pilot and SAR technician of CC-295 Kingfisher, Canada’s newest fixed-wing search and rescue aircraft, describe a mission to rescue civilian pilot who crashed 130 kilometres northeast of Prince George.