Three men and one woman are dead after a single-engine plane crashed in a cornfield northwest of Kitchener, Ont.
The small, four-seat Cessna 172 was located in the field near the town of Moorefield, Ont., about 150 kilometres northwest of Toronto, late Friday night.
Const. Keith Robb of Wellington County OPP confirmed that there were four occupants on board the plane and none survived the crash.
The woman was 19-years-old and the three males are in their twenties, said police.
The passengers had been out on a sightseeing trip over Niagara Falls and Toronto for nearly two hours before they crashed, CTV Toronto’s Ashley Rowe reported.
Police had received a call at about 8:40 p.m. Friday alerting them to a plane spiralling out of control above Mapleton Township, Robb said.
Robb said the plane had apparently disappeared from radar about 20 minutes earlier.
Officers, firefighters and paramedics located the plane shortly after 10 p.m.
Resident Llori Nicholls told CP she and her husband spotted a plane weaving uncontrollably in the sky Friday night.
Nicholls said before the crash she saw the plane’s engine sputter, though the pilot appeared to regain control of the plane.
“The pilot got the engine going again," said Nicholls. "It was nice and strong, full power, but only for a second or two. Then it just went dead."
The couple went back to their home to find supplies to help locate any survivors, but when they returned they could not locate the crash site.
The couple then went to a neighbour’s house to call 911.
Resident Curtis Bultz, 21, heard strange noises Friday evening followed by the sound of the crash.
Bultz then drove his ATV through neighbouring cornfields to investigate, but after 10 minutes of searching he returned home.
“I heard it but there was no smoke or anything," said Bultz. "There was no smoke at all. That's what you think, (that) there'd be something but there was nothing."
Bultz, his neighbours and emergency crews did a grid search by foot, tractor and four-by-fours.
Two hours later, they were able to locate the wreckage, said Bultz.
Once the wreckage was located, Bultz’s father used a tractor to clear a path for crews to get to the scene.
OPP said weather is not believed to be a factor in the crash.
According to investigators, the 20-year-old pilot of the plane was fully licensed to fly.
He was also a regular client of the nearby Waterloo-Wellington Flight Centre from where the plane was rented, Rowe reported.
The pilot’s grief-stricken uncle arrived at the scene of the crash on Saturday and told reporters he was at a loss for words over his nephew’s death.
“Very special. Better than my heart. He was something like…,” he said, trying to describe his nephew. “I don’t have words for it.”
Bob Connors, the general manager of the flight centre, would not comment on the pilot’s flying experience.
Connors told CP that the school had not seen a crash like this in a “long, long, long time.”
Two investigators from the Transportation Safety Board were at the scene of the crash Saturday trying to determine if the plane suffered mechanical failure.
“We’re looking at all the aircraft systems and determining if the aircraft was without power at the time, if all the flight controls were hooked up and working properly,” TSB investigator Ken Webster told reporters.
The bodies of the victims have been transported to a Hamilton hospital for autopsies. The victims will not be identified until all the next of kin have been notified.
With files from CTV Toronto’s Ashley Rowe and The Canadian Press
