Gerald Thom, 50, of Youbou and his long-ime friend Michael Weir, a 73-year-old Saltspring Island resident, have been identified by the coroners service as victims of a Nanaimo-area airplane crash Saturday evening.
The two men were good friends for 28 years, said Thom’s sister-in-law Alison Liebel on Sunday.
“He will be very dearly missed and he leaves a very large void in the community,” said Liebel.
The aircraft was an Avid amphibian, which is sold in kit form and assembled at home, said Bill Yearwood, aviation accident investigator with the Transportation Safety Board of Canada.
It crashed onto the 14th green at Cottonwood Golf Course, shortly after taking off from nearby Nanaimo Airport in Cassidy, south of Nanaimo.
Weir’s wife Joyce spoke from her Saltspring home on Sunday. “Michael and Gerald were very good friends," she said. “They had been friends for 28 years and they died together, doing what they loved."
Weir’s daughter, Elfi Rose, is also a pilot. She flies 737s, which was a point of pride for her dad, who started flying in the late 1960s.
Weir was a school teacher in Jasper, Alta., when he met Joyce and has three other children: Barb, Jeff and Libby.
Joyce said she will be making arrangements for a memorial service with Thom’s wife, Caroline.
Thom, described by friends as a “dynamo,” worked in science before his retirement and was active in local politics as president of the Cowichan Lake and River Stewardship Society. He and Weir once built a fish hatchery on Saltspring Island together.
“Caroline and I were talking about what we were going to do for a memorial and I said, ‘If Michael died, I would have asked Gerald to do the eulogy. If Gerald died, I would have asked Michael,’ ” Joyce said.
“But now I guess it's up to her and I. I'm going to miss my darling Michael.”
Golf course owner Trent Kaese got a call Saturday evening from his staff telling him that a plane had crashed on the course. The crash occurred on a night when golfers were scattered around the property, enjoying the summer evening.
Kaese immediately became concerned about the safety of these golfers, as many of the 310 members know him and he knows them.
“Obviously, I felt terrible because I hoped none of my people were injured, or people on the plane,” Kaese said Sunday.
He arrived to see the wreckage was on the auxillary rough off the 14th fairway. Kaese’s staff had already cleared the course of golfers.
The emergency services were all there but Kaese stayed back.
“All I could see was part of the tail of the plane was still intact, but all the rest of the plane had disintegrated,” Kaese said. “You could tell it was not a good outcome.”
Having a golf course close to the airport means golfers often turn to watch the aircraft approach or fly away from the runway, Kaese said.
“Sometimes, you hear a plane take off and you can hear it sputtering and that kind of stuff and then it turns around and lands again in two or three minutes,” he said.
Kaese said he believes the aircraft had taken off and was trying to return to the airport when it lost power.
After takeoff, the aircraft was about 300 feet out when it rolled to the left and dove into the ground at a very steep angle, Yearwood said. “The impact with the ground was not survivable."
Yearwood said the wreckage will be investigated to see why the pilot lost control. It’s the first time Yearwood has come across a home-built amphibious aircraft. The aircraft has a single, “pusher prop” engine.
“This particular one is relatively new. I’s only been flying since December,” he said. “It looks like the owners were flying it quite regularly.
The wrecked Avid amphibian, the only aircraft of its kind registered in B.C., is now at the Nanaimo Airport as the Transportation Safety Board and B.C. Coroners Service investigate.
The wreckage was cleared Saturday night and only a charred patch of ground was visible on the 14th hole of Cottonwood Golf Course as golfers prepared for a tournament Sunday.
Additonal reporting by Cara McKenna, Nanaimo Daily News
