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Four Britons die after plane crashes during sightseeing flight, say reports Four Britons die after plane crashes during sightseeing flight in Quebec
(about 11 hours later)
Four Britons are reportedly among six people who have been been killed in a light plane crash in Canada’s Quebec province. The Foreign Office is working urgently to establish the identities of four Britons killed in a seaplane crash in a remote Canadian forest.
A French woman and the pilot also died in the crash on Sunday on the north shore of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, about 311 miles north-east of Montreal. Five passengers and a pilot were killed when their Beaver aircraft crashed in woodland inaccessible by road in Les Bergeronnes, Quebec.
Air Saguenay, which operated the Beaver seaplane, said it was taking part in a routine sightseeing flight departing from Lac Long in Tadoussac, a popular area for whale watching. The plane, operated by Air Saguenay, took off from Lac Long in Tadoussac on a routine sightseeing flight before crashing on Sunday afternoon. Four passengers were British, according to newspaper Le Journal de Quebec, while the fifth passenger was named as Emilie Delaitre, a French woman from the Cote d’Azur.
Police in Quebec said the plane crashed in a densely wooded area that is difficult to reach, almost four miles from the community of Bergeronnes. Wreckage was located with the help of parachutists from the Canadian Armed Forces. The pilot, named as Romain Desrosiers, is reported to have had more than 6,000 hours of flying experience, all with Air Saguenay, where he had worked for the past 14 years.
Britain’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office could not confirm if the four were British, but said that it was aware of a plane crash in Les Bergeronnes, adding that officials were urgently working with local authorities to establish the identify of those on board. Quebec provincial police said the bodies of all six victims had been found and would be moved to Montreal for forensic tests, while investigators from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada were sent to the scene.
The French victim, Emilie Delaitre, born in 1987, was visiting the country with her aunt and uncle, who did not board the plane with her, the French consulate told AFP. The four British victims of the crash have not been identified. A Foreign Office spokesman said: “Following a plane crash in Les Bergeronnes, Canada, we are urgently working with local authorities to establish the identity of those on board.”
The pilot was very experienced and had worked for 14 years at Air Saguenay, according to the company’s chief executive Jean Tremblay. He told journalists the flight was only supposed to last 20 minutes and had taken place in perfect conditions, with clear visibility and a lack of wind. An Air Saguenay official told reporters the flight was supposed to last 20 minutes and flying conditions at the time were excellent. Although the weather was good when the flight took place, cloud and rain significantly affected efforts to access the steep and densely wooded area. The crash site was located by Canadian forces who flew over the search area.
He said the pilot had more than 6,000 hours of flying experience and the Beaver seaplane had clocked up about 25,000 hours of flight time. The seaplane was reportedly a De Havilland DHC-2 Beaver, built between 1950-60.
Air Saguenay upgraded its security system after another of its seaplanes crashed in bad weather in 2010, resulting in the deaths of four of the six people on board. Air Saguenay upgraded its security system after the same kind of seaplane crashed into a mountain in bad weather in 2010, killing four of the six people on board.
On its website, the airline says that it provides flights for sightseeing, canoeing expeditions, fishing and hunting trips as well as general charters. An investigation by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada into that tragedy found that poor weather conditions hampered visibility and was responsible for the crash. It also concluded that a lack of training on pilot decision-making for air taxi operators “exposes pilots and passengers to increased risk when flying in adverse weather conditions”.