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By Wylie Henderson - The Drive FM Cranbrook

Missing Plane

New clues prompt renewed search for Kamloops pilot, girlfriend

Apr 30, 2019 | 5:37 PM

CRANBROOK, B.C. — Family of a man in an aircraft that went missing after a flight in June 2017 is organizing a search for the plane in the St. Mary Valley and Redding Creek areas.

On June 8, 2017, a plane carrying Alex Simons of Kamloops and Sydney Robillard from Lethbridge who were 21 and 24-years-old at the time, stopped at Canadian Rockies International Airport to refuel before heading to Kamloops, but never reached its destination.

Natalie Lindgren is seeking volunteers to help with the search which is slated to happen between May 8 and 10.

“It’s a very dangerous environment,” says Lindgren. “We are looking for people with search and rescue experience, with drones that are able to capture pictures, and also planes. Any civil aircraft that can go out and fly, that’s fantastic.”

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She is also seeking anybody capable of handling an ATV in difficult terrain.

Lindgren says new clues have surfaced which indicate a specific search area in the valley at lower elevation, an area which she says wasn’t initially searched due to poor weather conditions.

“The weather, the aircraft performance and Alex’s experience – that is the likely route that Alex would have taken on his flight to Kamloops,” Lindgren says. “That really leads us to believe that that’s a high-probability area.”

Lindgren is also calling on the federal government to look into improving GPS specifications for planes.

She says search efforts were hindered because the on-board emergency location transmitter did not trigger upon impact and therefore could not provide a location for the aircraft.

There is a motion on the table at the House of Commons supporting her call, but she would like to see action on the motion before parliament breaks for the summer.