The Canadian Armed Forces has released a video showing the rescue of a lone survivor from a deadly helicopter crash this week on British Columbia’s rugged central coast. Two RCAF aircraft—a Cormorant helicopter and a Kingfisher search-and-rescue plane—were dispatched from Canadian Forces Base Comox on Vancouver Island after the forestry helicopter crashed Tuesday with three people on board. The pilot and a crew member from a logging company were killed when the Hughes 500 helicopter crashed in Loughborough Inlet at around 6:15 a.m. A third occupant was found alive in the wreckage by search-and-rescue technicians from 442 Squadron in Comox. Rescue helicopter pilot Capt. Chris Pratt says the Kingfisher crew located the wreckage in steep, mountainous terrain and then directed the Cormorant to the site. The wreckage was found in a “cutaway where a landslide had cleared out some trees,” Pratt said in an interview Thursday. The Cormorant crew made contact with the survivor, who had a handheld radio, before four search-and-rescue technicians were lowered to the site. “His injuries were assessed by that SAR tech team and that’s when we got the call back through our top cover—the Kingfisher—to extract immediately for that patient,” the pilot said. CFB Comox spokesperson Capt. Sabrina Martellino says the survivor was hoisted onto the rescue helicopter and flown to the base, where he was transferred to the care of paramedics. B.C. Emergency Health Services says the patient was airlifted to hospital in serious but stable condition. Friends and coworkers have identified the deceased as West Coast Helicopters pilot Riley Browne, of Port McNeill, and forestry worker Bobby Nowak, of Cumberland. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada is still investigating the circumstances surrounding the crash.
