Plane crash survival a ‘miracle’

Living on Prospect Bay, Pat and Harlan Faragher are used to watching float planes land and take off on the lake on a daily basis.
But neither of them were expecting what happened a week ago Monday (Oct. 4) when Trevor Lorteau, 32, of Sioux Lookout clipped a wire, sending the Beech Craft model 18D he was piloting spiralling into the water.
Faragher said she and her husband had planned to go into town that afternoon, adding it was unusual for them to be home at all at that time of day.
“It was weird. Normally speaking, if it’s nice out, we’re up the lake,” she said, adding it was rather windy that day and so they decided to run some errands instead.
“I was all dressed and ready to go into town,” she said, but her husband was in the workshop beside the house talking with his brother, Ken, and friend, Gord Plater.
“So I said, ‘I’m going to go pick apples,’” she explained.
The Faraghers’ one apple tree is located only steps from the water’s edge, and from there she could see the bay clearly. She hadn’t been picking for long when she heard a plane approaching.
“I heard the plane and thought, ‘It’s too low,’” she recalled.
The aircraft approached from the south and Faragher said when she saw it, her fears were confirmed—it was flying too low. She watched, horrified, as the plane caught one of the wires on a hydro tower.
“The line was holding on to the plane. It made a loud noise, then a huge piece of metal came flying off the plane,” she remarked.
Faragher noted the wire the plane had caught on was not a power line, but a line designed to protect the power lines from lightning damage.
She described the motion of the plane, set free from the wire, as it lost control, wobbled left and right, then nose-dived into the bay.
Her first thought, she said, was of the people inside. “It’s a huge plane. I know it can hold at least eight people,” she remarked.
The moment the plane hit the water, Faragher said she started screaming and running towards the workshop for help.
“I just screamed ‘Airplane crash! 9-1-1!’” she said. “My voice is still hoarse.”
As it happened, the lights in the workshop had flickered, so the men inside knew something was wrong.
Hearing his wife’s screams, Harlan Faragher and Plater jumped over the flower beds in the yard and made their way to a skiff that happened to be in the water at the dock.
Ken, meanwhile, went into the house to call 9-1-1.
The men approached the plane and looked into the rear window, looking for people, but they could see nothing. They then circled the aircraft and saw the top of a head bobbing in the water a short distance away.
Faragher said the person was making his way towards a small island in the bay.
As the two men approached the bobbing head, Lorteau reached his hand out to them. Plater grabbed his hand and pulled him into the skiff.
Once in the skiff, Lorteau told his rescuers there were no passengers in the aircraft, so the three returned to shore.
Faragher said it took them less than four minutes from the time they jumped in to the skiff to the time they brought the pilot to shore.
“We were so relieved,” she said. “It’s a good thing there weren’t more people in there.”
Despite being able to walk, the pilot had injuries that required attention.
“His face was full of blood,” Faragher said, noting head injuries usually bleed more than injuries located elsewhere on the body.
“He had a cut on his elbow. You could see the bone, but there was no blood,” she added, indicating very low blood pressure. “He was going into shock.”
They brought the man into the house, had him change out of his wet clothes, wrapped him in blankets, and put him in front of the fire. Faragher administered first aid while they waited for the ambulance to arrive.
“He was really quiet. All he said was, ‘The water came up so fast,’” Faragher recalled.
Within minutes of the 9-1-1 call, the Faraghers’ yard was swarming with police, paramedics, and firefighters.
“They got here very quickly,” she noted, adding they all did their jobs with courtesy and efficiency. “They were just super.”
The emergency service workers commended the Faraghers and Plater for their quick action.
“They were complimenting us,” she noted.“ We don’t want compliments. You just do it.”
Lorteau was taken to hospital for treatment and released that same day.
Looking back, Faragher said it was an amazing and unlikely series of factors that led to a happy ending.
“Usually there’s no skiff here, there’s nobody here during the day,” she noted. “How often am I picking apples in October?”
“She’s never down at the lake at three o’clock in the afternoon,” agreed the couple’s daughter, Connie Cuthbertson, who happened to call her mother at home while she was being interviewed by police.
“It’s a miracle things happened the way they did,” she added.
When they pulled the pilot out of the water, the men saw that he was swimming with his aviation jacket under his arm, despite his injuries.
“He wouldn’t have made it to that island,” Faragher said.
Talking about the events with a neighbour later that night, Faragher said she couldn’t understand how the pilot got out of the plane so quickly. The neighbour explained many small aircraft have a door in the roof for just such an emergency.
Faragher said people who live on the lake often are more conscious of the possibility of accidents like this one.
“When you live out here, you’re always more aware of that kind of thing. When we first moved out here, we took a St. John’s Ambulance course,” she said. “I’m always looking for boats in distress.”
Though the ordeal ended well, it has left a profound impact on those who witnessed it.
“As soon as I opened my eyes this morning, I saw the whole thing over again,” Faragher said.