Passengers preparing for Christmas

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Seven of the 17 people aboard a small plane that crashed near the Little Grand Rapids First Nation in eastern Manitoba were tribal council staff members on their way to help with a Christmas party at the neighboring Pauingassi First Nation.

"They were going up there to help prepare Christmas dinner for the community," said Manitoba's Southeast Tribal Council Executive Director Joe Malcolm. "Six of them were child and family service workers and the other was a maintenance worker."

The maintenance worker was one of four people killed in the crash. Included in the dead were a three-year-old boy and his 20-year-old mother, both from Winnipeg, and the pilot, Norman Richard McCrea, 62, of St. Andrews, Man. Many of the injured are still in hospital. Four of the injured were Little Grand Rapids band members. Witness reports indicate only three people walked away from the wreckage unhurt.

Four of the tribal staff members are still in hospital, the remaining two have been treated and released.

The other survivors of the crash were all visiting the Little Grand Rapids area on the regular scheduled flight from the St. Andrews airport, located just outside Winnipeg.

The plane, a twin engine turbo propeller Embraer-EMB-110P1 owned by Sowind Air Ltd. of St. Andrews, crashed into dense brush just one km from the gravel airstrip on Dec. 9. The airstrip, which does not have a manned control tower, is served by a non-directional beacon. The airstrip is located just outside the reserve, 300 km northeast of Winnipeg. The plane crashed at 3:15 p.m. in weather that was described as foggy. There were employees inside the airport at the time.

Moments after the crash, community members were on their way to the crash site. Access to the location was only available by snowmobile. Malcolm estimated that more than 100 people from the Little Grand Rapids First Nation assisted other officials during the tragedy.

"From the information I have received from the people up there, there is nothing but praise for the people of Little Grand Rapids," he said.

Malcolm said the tribal council will be counselling the staff at their Winnipeg office, helping them deal with their emotions. The council is also sending counsellors to Little Grand Rapids First Nation.

"There is a group going up to assist the community with this," he said the day following the crash. "There will be counsellors and workshops to help them cope."

Little Grand Rapids band councillor Nelson Keeper said it took people a little while to figure out what had happened after they heard what sounded like a bomb in the middle of the afternoon. Once it was understood that the sound was that of a crashed plane, the community swung into action, he said.

"The reaction was, 'What's going on, what happened, are there any survivors and what can we do to help,'" he said.

Community members were the first to the crash site.

Once they got to the plane, the scene was terrible, said Keeper.

"It hits hard," he said of the emotions the first on the scene had to deal with. "Anybody going through that kind of trauma, I mean you see people lying there, broken bones and bleeding and people dead. It was a complete mess."

Victims of the crash were comforted and carried back to Little Grand Rapids on snowmobiles.

Keeper said the three community health nurses worked feverishly to take care of the wounded, many in serious condition.

"The three nurses that were here had their hands full," he said.

Despite the tragedy, Keeper said the compassion and care the people of his community showed is worthy of credit.

"We are glad there's a lot of people out there who have a lot of heart," he said. "As a community leader, I have to be happy with the way people came together."

Poor weather hampered attempts by the Canadian Armed Forces and other rescue officials to airlift the injured from the Little Grand Rapids nursing station. It wasn't until Dec. 10 that planes and helicopters could safely land and transpor the injured to a Winnipeg hospital.

Manitoba Transportation Safety Board investigators are combing the scene of the crash and talking to witnesses to find out what caused the plane to go down.

Vic Gerden, the regional manager of the safety board, said the investigation will take weeks. He said investigators will be looking at the plane's engines, instrument panels and talking to survivors in order to get a handle on the final minutes of the flight. Included in the investigation will be a look at aircraft maintenance, weather conditions and the possibility of human error.

There was no black box on the plane or recordings of conversations between the pilot of the plane and any airstrip personnel.

Gerden said he could not confirm poor weather conditions at the time of the crash, but said the conditions will be taken into consideration during the investigation.

"Every accident is the result of a chain of events, normally. We don't want to restrict ourselves to any one particular factor," he said.

This was the second airplane crash in the area in the last five years. Accidents in 1992 and 1994 both saw small planes make forced landings near the airstrip. There were no fatalities in either of those accidents.

Gerden said his department responds to about 60 aircraft accidents each year in Manitoba, northern Saskatchewan, the Northwest Territories and the northern Ontario region.

Representatives from Sowind Air Ltd., which is an Aboriginal owned company, could not be reached for comment.

This is the first time a Sowind plane has had an accident and the first time in Canada that one of the Brazilian-made Embraer aircraft has crashed.