Me and poor sis
Me and poor sis
When I say don't give me asprin, I mean it doc.
When I say don't give me asprin, I mean it doc.

This destroyed Piper Navajo has an unforgettable story. June 7 1984, my Twin Otter was up for 500 hour inspection and I needed to go to the Hudson Bay coast to visit three sites. But first I will introduce you to Mary Ann. She was a 27 year old Swiss national working as head nurse for Big Trout Lake and 27 other reserves. I had helped her out with mercy flights before and I got to know her very well. Young intelligent and beautiful, she was known and respected by all but made friends slowly. Three years before, she had been prepared to get married to a helicopter pilot who died two days before the wedding. Now the Navajo: Gilbert Coots and I headed out of Red Lake, Ontario for the 800km trip to Kashechewan on Hudson bay. We knew each other from when he worked in Northern Alberta and I had contracts there. (Aviation is a small world.) The highlight of the trip was his informing me, he was getting married in two days. I was just floored when he told me he was not only moving on to fly with air Canada Regional after this flight but his wife was to be Mary Ann. Keeping anything secret on an reserve is tough but I didn't know how he did this. When landing in Red Lake, late that evening, we had only two green lights to indicate the gear was down. The nose wheel light was still showing red. We tried all the old ways to make it come down but it stayed red. After conferring and me trying to pump it down manually, we decided it was "Go" regardless. We had very little fuel left. Turns out the sensor was broken and the wheel was down. He went back to BTL. Next morning he was to leave on the early sched but they woke him to ask if he would test out the new sensor before leaving. This should have taken about 20 minutes. It was a clear day but a mist lay all around as it was Big Trout lake in June. He simply had to take off, tuck the wheels up and then lower them to see if it worked. As he took off, the mist started to lift and he was above it in instrument conditions. No problem, as Gib always flew as it it was in instrument conditions and had 800 hours instrument time. For some reason, he hit the water, nose down, at 120 to 200 miles an hour, with the wheels up, as if he was completely disoriented. The real instrument portion of the flight might have lasted ten seconds. It was just an early morning calm mist.