Native leaders die in plane crash after pipeline signing

Gary Park

PNA Canadian Correspondent

Just hours after signing an Arctic gas pipeline deal that could bring riches to their region, two Northwest Territories aboriginal leaders died Oct. 15 when their plane crashed in a blinding snowstorm. A third passenger was also killed in the crash of a Deh Cho Air Piper Chieftain close to the Fort Liard airstrip, but the pilot and two other passengers were pulled from the wreckage and flown to Yellowknife and Edmonton for medical treatment.

The victims were two leaders of the Acho Dene Koe — manager Sally Bertrand, 33, and councilor Daniel Loman, 61 — along with Sean Toner, 27, Bertrand’s fiancé.

Fort Liard Band Council senior administrative officer John McKee said the crash has cast a pall over what should have been a time of celebration, with the signing of a memorandum of understanding that could see aboriginals take a one-third equity stake in a Mackenzie Valley pipeline.

“Everybody’s pretty shook up,” he said. “It has devastated the community.”

Transportation Safety Board and Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigators are trying to establish why the twin-engine plane crashed into a sand bar near the Fort Liard airstrip.

Because of snow and dark, the survivors spent a long night waiting for help. Search and rescue technicians parachuted from a Hercules C-130 to reach the crash site. The survivors were initially transported by barge to a nursing station.