Search-and-rescue mission underway near Wawa
NIXON — A search-and-rescue operation was underway at press time for two men whose small plane went missing in northern Ontario after taking off from an airport north of Nixon, east of Delhi.
Reports on social media say the men are pilot Brian Slingerland and John Fehr, who both live in Alberta.
The reports say the pair took off from the airport near Rattlesnake Harbor around 3:45 pm Thursday destined for Alberta by way of northern Ontario. The pair were reportedly en route to Marathon in northern Ontario when the Flight Center in London lost track of them north of Sault Ste. Married.
“John Fehr – my brother – and his friend Brian Slingerland are still missing despite the ongoing search for them since Thursday night,” Mary Reimer said Sunday morning in a post on social media.
“I’m still praying for a miracle that they would be found alive although despair is pulling pretty hard the other way. Waiting and not knowing is so incredibly hard.”
In her post, Reimer says John Fehr and his wife Lisa have six children. A GoFundMe page with a target of $25,000 has been set up by John’s brother, Isack Fehr, of Aylmer, on behalf of John’s family.
“My brother John and his pilot friend were en route from Ontario to Alberta in a recently-purchased airplane,” Isack Fehr said Friday.
“They made it to somewhere around Wawa when their signal was lost.
“We are scared and worried to say the least. If you are a praying person please help us pray that they would be found safely.”
Public safety officials report search-and-rescue crews are doing their best under challenging conditions.
“Our priority right now is to try and find this aircraft and the two persons on board,” Maj. Trevor Reid of the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Center in Trenton told the Sault Star this weekend.
“Our priority right now is to try and find this aircraft and the two persons on board.”
The search got underway around 8 pm Thursday. High winds and clouds initially hampered the effort. The weather improved by midday Saturday.
“The conditions in the area did start to improve which made it more conducive to flying,” said Reid.
Visibility stood at 15 aeronautical miles, or about 28 kilometers, for air crews on Sunday, conditions Reid described as “excellent.”
The search is focused about 60 kilometers north of Sault Ste. Marie, the last known position of the aircraft. Efforts to find the missing plane are being done by air. The terrain is “quite difficult,” said Reid.
“Very hilly, very rough terrain,” he said, adding that the snow is “very deep,” up to five feet in some locations.
The plane at issue is a Piper Comanche. Electronic searches for the plane’s emergency transmitter have been unsuccessful.
The search area is being checked multiple times based on several factors, including last-known altitude, direction and lighting conditions.
More than a half-dozen aircraft, including four helicopters and a Hercules transport plane, are participating. Civil Air Search and Rescue Association members are serving as spotters on some aircraft.
While searchers are concentrating their efforts north of Sault Ste. Marie, they are also retracing the flight plan Slingerland filed to reach Marathon, said Reid.
With files from Postmedia