Forty years of flying experience brings happy end to B.C. plane crash saga
SURREY, B.C. — When an experienced Surrey, B.C., pilot agreed to take a friend and a Polish visitor on a short sightseeing flight over the snow-covered mountains north of Vancouver, he had no idea they would soon be landing on top of a glacier.
But first, 81-year-old Vern Hannah would demonstrate some remarkable flying skills that would keep all three of them alive.
His single-engine Beechcraft Musketeer took off in clear, warm weather Sunday morning from the Pitt Meadows airport, east of Vancouver, on a 140-kilometre trip north via Indian Arm to Pemberton.
Aboard were Peter Jedynakiewicz, 54, a glider pilot with a few hours of flight school under his belt, and his 27-year-old visitor from Poland, who’d never flown in a small plane.