Helicopter Crash Kills Five In B.C.

Thu., Aug. 19, 1999

From Staff

A helicopter collided with trees before crashing in a narrow mountain gully, killing the pilot and four Vancouver-area tourists, an accident investigator said.

What investigators had yet to determine was why.

“We can’t jump to any conclusions,” Bill Yearwood of the transportation safety board said Tuesday after returning from an aerial tour of the crash site.

“We just have evidence that the trees are damaged,” he said. “They are consistent with the area that the wreckage is in, so we can put the damaged trees together with the wreckage and say that the aircraft contacted these trees.”

Killed in the crash were Grace Lee, 45, her son Michael Lo, 22, and daughters Hilary Lo, 19, and Minerva Lo, 17, all of Burnaby, and pilot Colin Banner, 37, of Squamish.

Yearwood said it was too early to tell if there was anything wrong with the helicopter or at which angle it hit the trees.

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