Mark Gogal, a 40-year-old Snow Lake pilot, is dead and seven adult passengers are injured, some seriously, after a Gogal Air Service Cessna 208 Caravan plane crashed around 10 a.m. Sunday morning, 10 kilometres east of Snow Lake, off Stall Lake Mine Road, deep in dense bush. The front end of the plane was heavily damaged on impact when it hit the treetops. RCMP were alerted to the crash by a 911 call from a passenger onboard the aircraft.
The plane was flying Dumas Mine Contracting workers back to Winnipeg at the time of the crash. The mine contractors, digging a shaft for Hudbay Minerals Inc.'s Lalor zinc, copper and gold project, located three kilometres from the Chisel North mine, which in turn is 15 kilometres southwest of Snow Lake, had just finished for the week and were to have 10 days off, while another load of contractors had been scheduled to board the return flight from Winnipeg to Snow Lake. Instead, the plane crashed shortly after takeoff from Snow Lake on the initial flight. Cessna 208 Caravans are single-engine turboprops with fixed-gear and are considered short-haul aircraft able to carry up to 14 passengers.
Mark Gogal is a son of company owner Larry Gogal and Gogal Air Service's company office is on Lakeshore Drive in Snow Lake. Mark's brother Brad is also a company pilot. Snow Lake has no regular passenger service to Winnipeg, but Gogal Air Service flies back and forth regularly. Snow Lake has a population of just over 700 residents and is 250 kilometres southwest of Thompson.
Sgt. Line Karpish, RCMP "D" Division's senior media relations spokesperson in Manitoba, said in an e-mail at 2:48 p.m. Sunday, "All injured have been extricated from the aircraft and are getting medical attention. Those injured were immediately transported to the Snow Lake Health Centre for care." The health centre is staffed by Dr. Neil Macleod and five nurses, who were able to stabilize the plane crash victims, but has no operating room. Normally, the Snow Lake Health Centre only has one nurse on weekend duty, but was able to call in all four off-duty nurses Sunday, as all happened to be in town. The health centre had about two hours notice to get ready to receive the casualties.
Medevac Lifeflight Air Ambulance planes dispatched to Snow Lake Sunday afternoon couldn't land because of a low cloud ceiling and poor visibility. By the time the skies started to clear dusk was rapidly approaching, so the crash victims were triaged at the Snow Lake Health Centre and transported by ground ambulances to hospitals in Flin Flon, The Pas and Thompson later in the day. While slightly closer to Flin Flon, Snow Lake is about 2 1/2 hours away from all three - Flin Flon, The Pas and Thompson. Four of the seven survivors were then subsequently medevaced to Winnipeg. The injured man transferred originally from Snow Lake to Thompson was subsequently medevaced to Winnipeg. While most of the injured have serious injuries, including broken bones, none are suffering from life-threatening injuries and all seven are reportedly in stable condition.
A wide-ranging rescue response was launched, involving municipal, provincial and federal officials, including volunteers from the Snow Lake Fire Department, conservation officers from Manitoba Conservation and Water Stewardship, and natural resource officers, who brought several snowmobiles, RCMP officers from the Snow Lake, Flin Flon and The Pas detachments, and members of the Royal Canadian Air Force, flying a CC-130E Hercules search and rescue (SAR) mission, who circled overhead but couldn't make a parachute jump because of bad weather. Dozens of Snow Lake residents raced to the scene on snowmobiles and ATVs.
Transportation Safety Board of Canada investigator Ross Peden was en route to Snow Lake Sunday afternoon.
The crash happened about 1.6 kilometres east of the Snow Lake Airport, Karpish said Sunday evening, amending an earlier RCMP that had the crash site farther away at about 10 kilometres east of the airport, which is in turn about 15 kilometres northeast of the commercial centre of Snow Lake, making the crash site about 15.6 kilometres northeast of Snow Lake. The airport has a single gravel runway, which is 3,510-feet long and 75 feet wide.
Karpish said at about 12:40 p.m. Sunday, "Weather is hampering air support in this rescue, as airplanes cannot land in Snow Lake due to low ceiling. Difficulties are compounded with the remoteness of the crash making access to the plane and those injured very difficult. A Canadian Forces Search and Rescue Hercules was dispatched to assist but due to the weather can provide limited assistance right now."
Environment Canada was reporting temperatures at 2 p.m. Nov. 18 in the range of -5 C to -3 C, with mainly cloudy skies and fog patches and fog in the Thompson to Snow Lake to Flin Flon areas.
Strikiwski Contracting used a wide-path bulldozer to plow a makeshift road through swamp, muskeg and rock to the crash site. Rescuers, who had to cut their way into the crash site in dense bush, virtually without radio communications because of the remoteness of the location, reached the Cessna 208 Caravan before noon.
The Town of Snow Lake is currently in the midst of reviewing the future of the Snow Lake Airport location with the help of Montreal-based consultants Genivar.
On Oct. 18 at Snow Lake's Lawrie Marsh Hall there was an open house dealing with the proposed master plan for future Snow Lake Airport development. "The turnout was small, yet very engaged on the topic of air service to Snow Lake," Town of Snow Lake chief administrative officer Jeff Precourt, told Nickel Belt News "My Take on Snow Lake" columnist Marc Jackson. "Particularly regarding medevac service," Precourt added.
Snow Lake's airport advisory committee reviewed the position of the airstrip and recommended to town council that it remain at the current location.
Gogal Air disagreed, with Larry Gogal saying the airport should never have been located where it is and that the company has long held concerns with the positioning of the current airstrip, both in its location in respect to prevailing winds and its distance from the community. Gogal said he felt there were several locations closer to the community that would be better suited for the strip.
The Gogal family also owns the fly-in fishing and hunting Burntwood Lake Lodge on Burntwood Lake.
