First responders recount experience of responding to Fort Smith plane crash
A Canadian Army ranger says he was hoping for the best when he rushed to the plane that crashed near Fort Smith, N.W.T., Tuesday, leaving six people dead and one injured.
Sgt. Gordon Rothnie, who is from Fort Smith, said he and four colleagues received the call and went by snowmobile to help at the crash site.
"From my perspective, you go in with a lot of optimism to assist in any way you can, do the best you can, depending on the circumstances and it was a difficult situation," Rothnie said in an interview Thursday.
"I refused to accept what I was witnessing. Even going to bed that night I was still wanting to search."
Rothnie, 50, said everybody knows everyone in Fort Smith, a community of more than 2,200 people, and he knew the victims but didn't reveal their names.
He said the connection he has to the community makes this an intimate loss.
"When something like this happens you're connected. It's not like you're anonymous. There's always some connection," he said.
"You're not impartial. There's an intimacy. Your children played together or you knew them, so I would say the painful part is for the loved ones who one moment, you have someone dear to you and then they're just taken away."
The charter plane had just taken off from Fort Smith and was en route to the Diavik Diamond Mine on Tuesday morning, when it hit the ground and caught fire.
Mallory Minerson was working at the local health centre on Tuesday morning when news arrived of the crash. Minerson is based in Inuvik, N.W.T., but she worked in Fort Smith for several years as a counsellor and was back helping out this week.
The crash meant the health centre was under a "code orange" as it waited for any injured victims to arrive. Staff had little information to help them know what to expect. It was a long wait.
'It was really hard to wait and for no one to come,' said Mallory Minerson, who was working at the Fort Smith health centre on Tuesday as staff there prepared for the potential arrival of injured victims. (CBC)
"Everybody was very well prepared, very ready to go," recalled Minerson.
"It was really hard. Fort Smith is my home in the North, and it was really hard to wait and for no one to come, in the end."
The territorial coroner's office has not identified the victims of the crash, but some family members have.
Clayton Balsillie says his sister, Diane Balsillie, was among those killed.
She and three others who died worked at the mine, and two were crew members with Northwestern Air Lease.
Crystal Benwell told CBC her brother, Howie Benwell, was also killed in the crash.
She described Howie as a local musician with a great sense of humour.
Howie Benwell, who died Tuesday when a plane crashed near Fort Smith, had recently turned 30. (Submitted by Crystal Benwell)
One mine worker, Kurt Macdonald, survived and was airlifted to hospital in Yellowknife. His father, Jay Macdonald, told CBC Kurt is an electrician at the Diavik mine, and is the father of a five-month-old son with his fiancée, Dominique.
Minerson said it's going to be a "long journey" for many people in Fort Smith as they deal with their grief. Right now, there are three additional counsellors in the community, and there are plans to bring in additional counselling teams in the coming weeks.
"Fort Smith has shown over the last year especially, through the evacuations and many more recent tragedies that we've had, that this is a really strong community and that we all really come together and take care of one another," she said.
