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Bush flying's golden rule: 'Gravity always wins'
Taking care in the cockpit, thorough maintenance on the ground and avoiding heroics minimize risk for veteran wilderness pilots

STEVE MERTL
The Canadian Press
August 11, 2008

VANCOUVER -- Gideon Shuetze believes in the axiom that there are old pilots and bold pilots but no old, bold pilots.

Mr. Shuetze, who with his sons operates Sharp Wings Ltd. air charter service from the central B.C. town of Williams Lake, is 78 years old and has been bush flying for almost half a century.

He's survived - like the vintage 1956 de Havilland Beaver floatplane in his two-plane fleet - by being careful.

The risks of backcountry flying were highlighted last week when two B.C. crashes claimed nine lives.
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Five men died last Sunday when a 1944 Grumman Goose seaplane slammed into a mountain on northern Vancouver Island and exploded in flames.

Four more were killed when a helicopter chartered for mineral exploration plunged upside down into an icy river in northwestern British Columbia.

Investigations into both crashes are far from over but signs in the helicopter crash point to damage to its controls from a piece of equipment not used for flight.

Accidents can happen anywhere, but in the daunting mountains that cover most of B.C., and the rugged terrain in much of the rest of Canada, safety margins seem even more important.

Mr. Shuetze and veteran wilderness helicopter pilot Mike King say the risk of trouble soars when corners are cut in maintenance or pilots push the envelope to show off or please paying clients.

Transportation Safety Board statistics show there were 33 fatal airplane and helicopter accidents causing 49 deaths in Canada last year, higher than the five-year annual average of 30.

One-third of them involved privately owned aircraft, most flown for pleasure.

The statistics do not identify crashes in remote locations but aircraft chartered by resource companies or working as air taxis common in the hinterland account for some percentage.

Mr. Shuetze, who's flown hunters and prospectors mainly in the Cariboo-Chilcotin but also in the North and the western U.S. states, has had his share of close calls - dead engines, forced landings - but nothing really serious.

"I've had some exciting moments," he says nonchalantly. "Gravity always wins. We just help to smooth out our landings, that's all."

Canadian-built Beavers, which haven't been produced since the late 1960s, are famously rugged and reliable.

The same goes for the Second World War-era Goose, says Mr. Shuetze, as long as you stick religiously to the maintenance and inspection schedule.

"In all my time, I've only known three Goose that came to grief," he says. "That's not to say you're guaranteed 100 per cent no accidents. There's always Murphy's Law, you know."

Mike King and his brother Dave operate Saddle Air Services Ltd. at remote Tatla Lake, 320 kilometres north of Vancouver.

Mr. King's work involves firefighting for the B.C. Forest Service, doing mineral exploration and ferrying mountain climbers and heli-skiers. He regularly rescues injured climbers from nearby Mount Waddington, B.C.'s highest peak.

"My specialty is flying in the mountains, doing some of the windy, horrible things that might scare a lot of other people off," Mr. King says.

Mr. King lost his father in 1978 when his helicopter disappeared on a flight to the B.C. mainland from Port Hardy, on Vancouver Island.

"We never did find him," he says.

Mr. King's own closest call came in 1987 when his Bell

JetRanger fell from the sky. "The engine came apart and I ended up in the trees and ended up walking home," he says.

Mr. King says the safety board investigation showed the engine failure was due to extreme salt erosion.

"That machine had never been within 50 miles of the ocean, ever," he says.

Like many operators, Mr. King's aircraft had a rebuilt engine, certified in new condition, installed in his aircraft in its last major overhaul. It lasted less than half its rated number of flying hours.

"They overhauled it according to the manual," he says.

But then another helicopter that crashed near Burns Lake, killing two people, showed the same problem. Mr. King says a glitch was discovered in the maintenance manual used by the overhaul facility that allowed the problem to go undetected.

The lesson for Mr. King was to overhaul using only new parts or refurbish those from his own aircraft.

Sometimes, say Mr. King and Mr. Shuetze, the risks are created by the pilots themselves: "People going beyond their capability and pushing the airplane beyond their capability," Mr. Shuetze says.

"Weather is one of the biggest things, [and] 'get-home-itis.' You're in a hurry to get home so you push a little bit."

Sometimes it's the customer who encourages the pilot to push the envelope, Mr. Shuetze says.

"You want to look like the macho hero so you say, 'Aw, I can do it. Somebody else did it so I should be able to.' That's not always true."

Pilots like Mr. Shuetze and Mr. King rely on their local knowledge of terrain and weather conditions to assess the risks.

"I don't believe in doing any heroics," Mr. King says.

For instance, he refuses to do toe-ins, hovering with the tip of the helicopter skids perched on a slope where it's too steep to land properly.

"We're all asked that. But this is my 33rd year of flying; I can say, 'No. I won't pick you up there, I'll pick you up over here.'

"I've been in the business a long time and I've got a lot of friends that aren't here any more, trying to be heroes."

Sometimes, though, you have little choice.

A couple of years ago, Mr. King was picking up some heli-skiers on a mountainside in his brand new $2-million Bell

LongRanger when an avalanche came racing toward them. He was forced to lift off before it was completely powered up.

"The machine was great," he recalls. "It actually pulled out of it without the rotors even turning fast enough.

"We had maybe three quarters of a second and the avalanche went beneath us. It was not a nice experience."

I own the old Manitou Creek cannery site on the Dean Channel, across from the mouth of the Dean River in northwest BC, and have been flying there in my off time for over 20 years now. Great flying, but when the weather goes down it's an E ticket ride getting around in that part of the world. Lots of straight up and down rock, and lots of big water.



Gump