Pilot killed in Quebec Remembrance Day plane crash identified as Daniel Parent

A pilot who died when his plane crashed after participating in a Remembrance Day ceremony south of Quebec City has been identified as Daniel Parent, a member of a local flying club, the City of Saint-Georges said Thursday.

Parent was the only person aboard the plane when it went down around 11 a.m. Wednesday in a wooded area near the Saint-Georges airport and caught fire. He was declared dead at the scene, Quebec provincial police said.

The pilot had been flying with several other aircraft when his plane crashed. He was approaching the airport to land.

Police described Parent as a man in his 60s who lived in the region. AVweb identified him as 68-year-old Daniel Parent and reported that he was flying alongside five other members of the Club Aéronautique de Beauce, known as the CAB Boys, in a missing-man formation honoring fallen military personnel.

Witness accounts

Resident Serge Doyon told TVA Nouvelles that he heard what appeared to be an engine intermittently losing and regaining power as the aircraft passed overhead. He reported seeing one airplane turn away from the formation before descending steeply toward the ground. Another witness, Dominique Maheux, described seeing the aircraft veer right before the impact.

"Then it disappeared into the trees, and I saw a ball of fire, followed by black smoke," Maheux told Global News.

Investigation

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada dispatched investigators to examine the accident site and wreckage. Authorities have not established a cause.

Hugues Drouin, another pilot in the formation, told Le Journal de Québec that the formation leader called for a position report from Parent but received no response. Drouin said the pilots had received specialized formation-flying training from a former military pilot and that Parent had performed the maneuver many times previously. He also confirmed there had been no midair collision. According to Drouin, a professional filmmaker aboard his aircraft recorded the incident, and the footage has been turned over to investigators.

Official response

Mayor Manon Bougie offered her condolences and said the city was lowering flags to half-mast at city hall and the Saint-Georges airport.

Premier Paul St-Pierre Plamondon offered his condolences following the crash and said he was working with the province’s domestic security minister to gather more information about what happened.

The Canadian Armed Forces told Global News that the aircraft did not belong to the military and no CAF personnel were involved. National Defence Minister David McGuinty also issued a statement expressing his condolences to the pilot’s family and loved ones.

Saint-Georges is located roughly 100 kilometres southeast of Quebec City. The cause of the crash is not yet known.

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Sources

• globalnews.ca: Pilot killed in Quebec Remembrance Day plane crash identified | Globalnews.ca
• avweb.com: Pilot Killed Following Remembrance Day Formation Flight in Quebec
• canadianinquirer.net: Pilot killed in plane crash during Remembrance Day ceremony in Quebec - Philippine Canadian Inquirer Nationwide Filipino Newspaper
• usmuslims.com: Canadian pilot killed in plane crash near Remembrance Day ceremony in Quebec

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