2 snowbirds collide while training

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dodgechargerfan

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Two Canadian Forces Snowbird jets have crashed near Mossbank, Saskatchewan, about 65 kilometres south of Moose Jaw, the military confirmed.

Airforce officials say the planes crashed in mid-air during a routine exercise Friday morning.

Capt. Jay Walker of 15 Wing, the Snowbirds' Saskatchewan home base, reported search and rescue crews had been dispatched to the site.

Walker said the status of the pilots is unclear at this time, despite earlier reports that said the pilots were able to eject safely.

The search and rescue team is being assisted by two search aircraft in their efforts to locate the pilots.

"We're just really trying to get to the pilots right now. That's our first priority," said 2nd Lieut. Andrea Collins of 15 Wing.

All operations have been temporarily suspended while investigators try to determine what caused the crash.

The Snowbirds fly the Canadair CT-114 Tutor, a Canadian built jet used by the Canadian Forces as its basic pilot training aircraft until 2000.

The unit has been flying together for 35 years. To date they have performed for more than 116 million spectators across North America.
 
One didn't make it.

The Department of National Defence is now confirming that one pilot has died after the mid-air crash of two Snowbirds jets over Saskatchewan on Friday.

The pilot who died has been identified as Capt. Miles Selby. Meanwhile, another pilot, Capt. Chuck Mallett, has been taken to hospital with minor injuries.

The Snowbirds website said Selby, who was 31, had over 2,650 hours of military flying experience. He was originally from Tsawwassen, B. C. and was in his second year with the Snowbirds.

Selby was a fighter pilot who was posted with a squadron in Cold Lake, Alberta and also served in the Kosovo conflict and in peacekeeping missions over the Balkans.

Mallett, 35, is from Edmonton, and is in his third year with the Snowbirds. He's described as having over 3,350 hours of military flying experience.

The crash happened while the planes were flying at an altitude of 1,000 feet over Mossbank, Sask., which is about 65 kilometres south of Moose Jaw.

"We're not certain of the exact detail of how the accident happened," one official told a news conference.

Airforce officials say the planes crashed in mid-air during a routine practice exercise Friday morning.

Capt. Jay Walker of 15 Wing, the Snowbirds' Saskatchewan home base, reported search and rescue crews had been dispatched to the site.

Earlier reports had said that both the pilots were able to eject safely.

In an interview from her home in Mossbank, Jackie Geis told CTV Newsnet that she was outside doing chores when she heard a "loud boom."

Her dogs started to bark and she looked up.

"I looked up and there were two big puffs of smoke. One to the left of me and one to the right. And I watched the stuff fall to the ground."

Geis, who was on top of a haystack when she saw the crash, said that, from her vantage point east of the crash site, she saw what appeared to be one pilot parachuting to the ground.

"To be honest with you, I saw one pilot come out."

Although she was too far to discern the condition the pilot's condition, "From what I know about parachuting he looked like he was landing how he should have been landing."

All operations have been temporarily suspended while investigators try to determine what caused the crash.

The latest incident comes exactly six years to the day after Captain Michael VandenBos lost his life in an accident that happened on Dec. 10, 1998.

The accident occurred 26 kilometres south of 15 Wing Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. Captain Michael VandenBos lost his life in the crash.

On that morning a formation of six aircraft were conducting training manoeuvres south of CFB Moose Jaw when the wing of one plan came in to contact with another.

VandenBos' plane stalled and fell to the ground. While he was able to eject, VandenBos died from injuries sustained when he hit the ground.

The Snowbirds fly the Canadair CT-114 Tutor, a Canadian built jet used by the Canadian Forces as its basic pilot training aircraft until 2000.

The unit has been flying together for 35 years. To date they have performed for more than 116 million spectators across North America.
 
[smilie=2: sad day in snowbird land.. those guys can really fly

i have had the pleasure watching them in the summer
 
dodgedifferent2 said:
[smilie=2: sad day in snowbird land.. those guys can really fly

i have had the pleasure watching them in the summer[/quote]

Me too. They always have a week or two worth of practice out of the Niagara District Airport in August of every year.

A lot of times they do low level flights right over my house.
I can stand at the end of my driveway and see most of the higher altitude stuff. If I want to see everything, I only need to drive 2 minutes to the Welland Canal and I get a courtside seat for all of the action.

I actually have some pics and video from last year. I was working on the Charger when they started buzzing around. Having my camera handy, I started shooting pics and some video.
Click to expand...
 
My painter's brother-in-law flies with the Snowbirds.
His wife was literally freaking out when she heard about the crash, and didn't hear who was involved. Lucky for her family, the fatality wasn't in her family.
Sad day.
 
Just a reminder that even the most highly trained individuals in the business can have things go haywire. The unfortunate part is, that unlike us, when something goes wrong in their areas of expertise, it costs big time.
Damn shame. These guys bring enjoyment to old and young alike. We see a few minutes of percision aerobatics, and they put their life on the line for it all the time.
 
The sad part is that someone with nothing better to do in life is going to call for an inquiry and try and get these guys shut down.

The inquiry is necessary, I think. The families involved will want answers.

But some jack-ass politician is going to make this a personal vendetta for no other reason than to make themselves look like they are doing something important.

Let the team sort it out. Ultimately, they are the people that need to be satisified with what gets reported. If they feel like someone is hiding anything from the inquiry, they won't want to fly anymore. They'll always wonder if they'll be the next to be affected.

Not to say that there is anything amiss here. I'm just trying to point out that it's in the teams's best interest to get everthing sorted out in their minds and they should be in charge of doing that. That way the only agenda at play is the safety of the team. Period.

Let the politicians in and there's no end to the agendas that come into play.

If were in that situation and someone outside of my team or my superiors tried to ram decisions down my throat, I'd just stop flying. (No, I don't fly. It's just hypothetical.)

I guess that's the long way to say Leave them alone, They'll do what's best.
 
ok i have the report already for you as described in the first article


plane fly fast ...pilot saw bright sun ...plane hit other plane ...kaboom ...plane then fall to gorund

i should become an investigator [smilie=e:
 
dodgedifferent2 said:
ok i have the report already for you as described in the first article


plane fly fast ...pilot saw bright sun ...plane hit other plane ...kaboom ...plane then fall to gorund

i should become an investigator [smilie=e:[/quote]

[smilie=e: Not good enough, what about the [i]other[/i] pilot?? [smilie=e:
Click to expand...
 
See what I mean?

This is agood article. All the right things are getting done for the right reasons UNTIL you read the last sentence.




All training operations have been suspended at the CFB Moose Jaw base in Saskatchewan while officials investigate Friday's crash of two Snowbirds aerobatics team jets.

"As with any accident, there's of course many question marks out there," Snowbird pilot Chris Hope told reporters on Saturday.

"At this point, we're just trying to deal with the human aspects of it, and making sure that everyone is taken care of it."

That means comforting and supporting the families of both men, he said.

Flags on the base are flying at half-mast.

Capt. Miles Selby, 31, of Delta, B.C. died in the incident while a second pilot -- Chuck Mallett, 34 of Edmonton -- suffered minor injuries after ejecting safely.

Both men were solo pilots. They perform a heart-stopping criss-cross maneuvre that thrills hundreds of thousands of spectators every year at air shows all around the world.

Selby had been with the 18-member team for two years and had flown combat missions in a CF-18 during the Kosovo conflict five years ago.

He is the sixth Snowbird pilot to die in the group's 35-year history.

The last pilot to die in a crash was Capt. Michael VandenBos, 29. His accident involved two planes colliding near Moose Jaw. It happened six years ago to the very day of Selby's crash.

There have been five Snowbirds accidents in the past 10 years.

The latest incident occurred Friday near the town of Mossbank about 65 kilometres south of the base.

"As soon as I looked up to the sky, I knew exactly what happened. There was the two puffs of smoke - the big, black one to the left and not quite as big a one on the right," Jackie Geis, a local rancher, told The Canadian Press. She was throwing bales to her cattle Friday morning when she heard a loud boom.

"But the one on the right - you could see it was a plane. It was coming down.

"I saw the pilot ejecting, coming down with his parachute open.

"They weren't real high. When he came out with the parachute I could see him sitting in (his seat). It was terrible."

Fragments of the CT-114 Tutor jet were scattered over a 12-square-kilometre area.

Some of the debris fell on a long-abandoned air base that was used to train pilots for the Second World War.

Investigators in orange coveralls could be seen roaming around the crash area looking for clues.

Every time there's an incident with the Snowbirds, the age of their aircraft comes up.

The last Tutor rolled off the assembly line in 1966.

"Take a look first-hand at our aircraft, and they are as finely-maintained today as they were 40 years ago," said Snowbirds crew chief Dave Scharf. "And we are very proud of that fact."

The aging of the Snowbirds' aircraft has raised questions before about the unit.

According to The Globe and Mail, Defence Minister Bill Graham said Friday the team's future "will have to be studied."
 
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