Crash in Canada Kills 82-Year-Old Pilot
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(AP) - The dead pilot of a twin-engine plane that crashed into a suburban Vancouver apartment building was an 82-year-old with decades of flying experience whose aircraft was recertified for flight after an accident last year, officials said.
Peter Garrison was the owner and sole occupant of the Piper Seneca, which struck the ninth floor of the 15-story building in Richmond on Friday with so much force it ended up near the elevator shaft. Two people in the building were injured.
Garrison was a resident of Maple Ridge who had more than 60 years of experience as a pilot, officials said Saturday.
In February 2006, the plane's landing gear collapsed on an airport runway, damaging the engines, said Bill Yearwood, a spokesman for Canada's Transportation Safety Board. The aircraft was rebuilt and recertified for flight, he said.
"In the investigation we will try to find out if there was anything wrong with the aircraft, and if we do find something we would see if it had any bearing on the previous occurrence," Yearwood said.
The plane was completely shattered, with pieces in the building and on the ground. "It impacted at high speeds and drove itself through the apartment and came to a stop at the main shaft of the building where the elevator and stairs are," Yearwood said.
The building has been declared uninhabitable for the time being.
Witnesses said the plane appeared to be flying erratically soon after taking off from nearby Vancouver International Airport on a short flight to Pitt Meadows, just east of Vancouver.
It wasn't immediately known whether the pilot had any communication with air traffic controllers in the brief time the plane was airborne.
The plane did not have a cockpit voice recorder or flight data recorder "so there is no information that is easily obtainable in the short term," Yearwood said.