Charter service identifies pilot in Little Grand Rapids plane crash

The company that owned a float plane that crashed near Little Grand Rapids, Man., has confirmed the name of the pilot.

Ed and Steve Gaffray, owners of Blue Water Aviation,released a statement Tuesday afternoon identifying the 39-year-old pilot as Jonathan Friesen.

Friesenwas an experienced pilot who loggedover 9,000 flight hours and worked for the air charter service for 17 years 15 of which were spent flying de Havilland Otter airplanes, the owners said.

"Blue Water is a family run company, this tragedy has deeply touched usall," they said, adding that their thoughts are with the families of the victims.

Although Friesen is the firstidentified crash victim, his body has yet to be found.

RCMP announced yesterday they found a body belonging to a 49-year-old man from Family Lake, but said police and the community of Little Grand Rapids are stillsearching by boat for Friesen's body and that of the 42-year-old passenger.

The community has about 10 boats out in the water while the RCMP dive team continues its search.

Community honours victims

To honour the victims and their families, about 40 people holdingcandles gathered Monday nightat Little Grand Rapids Lodge, near where the bush plane was supposed to land on Saturday morning.

"To pray for the families, hoping that we find those two, get them home, so the family can have closure," said Collin Meekis, community health representative with Little Grand Rapids, who helped organize the vigil and search.

"Their loved one is still in the water. How hard it must be. They don't know if they'll find them. They must be hurting right now," he said softly, his voice cracking.

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada said the aircraft involved was a de Havilland DHC-3 Otter a single-engine bush planemanufactured by Ontario-based de Havilland Aircraft of Canadathat can seat 10 to 11 passengers.

According to Blue Water'sstatement,the plane took off from Bissett, Man.a community more than 160 km northeast of Winnipeg at 8 a.m. Saturday and was supposed to land in Little Grand Rapids.

When the company heard about the crash, it sent a helicopter to help RCMP in its search, "but unfortunately there were no survivors."

Theflight came at the end of the flying season for the charter service,and no further flights are currently scheduled for this fall, Blue Water Aviation said.

The TSBannounced Monday that it is deploying an investigator to Little Grand Rapids to look into how the crash happened.

Blue Water says it is helping the ongoinginvestigation as best it can, but cannot comment any further.

Though he did not see the plane go down, Meekis was among the first at the scene. He drove his boat out on Family Lake to search for survivors as soon as he heard what happenedbut only found debris.

Meekis said the community is frustrated because the Mounties didn't begin their water search until the day after the plane crashed.

An RCMP spokesperson saidthedelay wasdue to weather.

"We had people all over and we're doing it again today, just in case the bodies surface and then wash up on shoreline," Meekis said.

The air is getting cold and it's snowing, but the water is still open, he said.

Community members released candles onto the water last night.

Some of them stayed lit, Meekis said.

"We're trying. We're helping any way we can, trying to get them home so theycan have their closure."