File photo shows airborne Switzer 2-33 glider of the type that crashed here Sunday.
INSTRUMENT PROBLEM PROBED
Two safe after glider crash
by MALCOLM CURTIS Staff reporter
An instrument malfunction is suspected in a glider crash at Prince George airport that injured two city air cadets Sunday.
Greg Johnston, 18, was in hospital today for treatment of a broken ankle and wrist, while Bud Struck, 17, escaped serious injury.
The glider they were in released prematurely from a tow plane at about 9:20 a.m. and landed on boggy ground near the south end of the airport.
“When they took off they just weren’t getting up to speed and altitude and a decision was made to release,” said Capt. Bob Good of the Royal Canadian Air Cadets, squadron 396.
It was feared the glider might otherwise have not cleared trees at the end of the airport.
Good said the manoeuvre is one that is practised and the glider "should have come down safely. . .procedures were followed by the book.”
Good said an instrument problem with the glider is believed the possible cause for the mishap.
It was the first flight for Struck, a passenger, but Johnston, who was piloting the glider, had over 100 hours of flying time under his belt, cadet spokesmen said.
Both youths have been in the cadets for over four years, Good said.
The tow plane was piloted by Larry Espenant who was in charge of the gliding operation and had towed the glider on two previous flights that morning.
Espenant, whose single-engined plane landed safely, declined to comment on the incident.
The $25,000 Switzer glider, borrowed from Vancouver for the weekend, was destroyed and airport manager Wayne Harley said the two cadets were lucky it landed in a boggy area or they might not have survived.
The metal-framed, canvas-covered glider is identical to one owned by the Prince George cadet squadron and was borrowed for the annual summer flying program run out of the city airport for cadets in northern B.C.
Defence ministry and Canadian Aviation Safety Board investigators are looking into the crash and are expected to produce a preliminary report in 10 days.
The accident was the first in the Frince George Air Cadets’ nine-year history, according to cadet spokesmen.
“We want to emphasize the safety aspect of our program,” said Sandy Allen, vice-chairman of the B.C. committee of the Air Cadet League of Canada.
Allen said it is the first time any glider has been involved in a crash in Northern B.C. and that the utmost attention is paid to safety precautions in the glider program.
Construction pickets remain
VANCOUVER (CP) - Picketing continued in British Columbia’s unionized construction industry today as three dissident unions protested the way contract talks were handled by the joint union bargaining council.
Gordon Heard, president of Local 82 of the International Union of Elevator Constructors, said members of his union plus members of the plumbers and boilermakers unions were still on strike.
The picketing came despite a tentative agreement reached Friday between the B.C. and Yukon Building and Construction Trades Council and the Construction Labor Relations Association.
Heard said the three unions plan to make a formal application to the provincial labor relations board for the right to negotiate their own deals with contractors.
The three unions have said the bargaining council did not properly represent them.
The council’s tentative agreement with the 118-member contractors’ group calls for a two-year
wage freeze. It also includes a $4-an-hour wage cut for workers on residential construction and other temporary cuts.
Average wage in the industry, which employs 20,000 union members, is $19 an hour.
“What’s the incentive to vote on a package of cuts,” asked Norm Farley, business manager for the 5,000-member Plumbers, Pipefitters and Steamfitters Union.
He also said the dissidents won’t be deterred if the labor board rules against their application.
If the board rules in their favor, the three unmions woujld be free to negotiate their own contract with any contractors belonging to Construction Labor Relations Asso-cation who employ their members.
“They (other union leaders) are in for a big surprise,” said Farley. “I think they missed the calling of the membership.
“The membership meant what they said when they said: ‘Go to the bargaining table and don’t bring back a bunch of cuts.’ “
Farley said the three unions
would begin by picketing 50 per cent of construction sites and escalate picketing to include all construction sites by Wednesday.
Roy Gautier, chief union negotiator, and Cy Stairs, spokesman for the building trades council, declined to comment Sunday. Gautier had said earlier he expected all pickets in the month-long dispute would come down today.
.. .and in tomorrow's Citizen...
Tomorrow, you’ll read about the diamond cutters of Amsterdam and find out why thev're lidding special events this yea*.
Also planned:
■ Complete coveragi; of tonight’s city council meetitigm
■ Celebrity twins^draw mixed reaction at their high-school reunion.
Sculn&ck 1
Low tonight: 5 High Tuesday: 22 L Kketihx eUtcUh. pap, 2
The Prince George
Citizen
MONDAY, JUNE 23, 1986
40 CENTS
A vision for the future 3 Socred fears 'conspiracy' 5 Hansen's home stretch 7
......2,3,8
.........16
..........4
Entertainment..... ......22,23
Horoscopes.................17
International ................7
Lifestyles....................6
Lotteries.....................5
Movies .....................22
National.....................5
Sports....................11-13
Television ..................16
Citizen photo by Brock Gable
Investigator examines wreckage of Air Cadet glider after crash at Prince George airport on Sunday.
TWO DEAD, FOUR HURT
Grads7 party night turns into tragedy
George since 1979, police said.
The party was attended by about 500 young people and was held on a farm owned by the father of a Kelly Road graduate.
Nukko Lake resident Jamie Shutes graduated this weekend from Kelly Road and attended the party.
He said the owners took away the keys from everyone driving to the party and the keys weren’t returned unless the driver was sober.
At about 8 a.m. Sunday a Toyota Land Cruiser carrying four teenagers returning from the same party left Chief Lake Road 400 metres west of Foothills Boulevard and rolled in a ditch.
In satisfactory condition in hospital are Kent Dobson, 19, and Lisa McLaughlin, 16. Treated and released from hospital were Stacey Germaniuk, 16, and the vehicle’s driver, Wayne Kemp, 19.
Excessive speeds and alcohol were believed to be involved in both accidents, Sgt. Bishop said.
The deaths of Taylor and Nor-beck has affected the Prince George sporting community. Both were sports-minded Grade 11 students at local high schools.
Taylor, who attended Kelly Road secondary, was a baseball and softball player whose older brothers and father, Bruce, are longtime participants in those sports locally.
“He was a very pleasant, quiet young man,” said Kelly Road principal Jim Smith. “These are very tragic circumstances for ones so young.”
Norbeck just completed her first year at Prince George secondary school and was a member of the Polarette basketball team.
Coach Bob Eaton said he and the team were shaken by the news.
“She epitomized hustle on our team. She gave maximum effort all the time, and she always had a smile,” said Eaton.
“It’s still hard to believe. The whole team will miss her.”
PGSS principal Lyell Rodger said schools work hard with police to try to bring drinking and driving awareness to students.
“It seems a bloody shame. We do everything we can at school to prevent this kind of thing,” Rodger explained.
All local high schools receive police presentations on the dangers of drinking and driving each year before the annual festivities associated with graduation.
“We’ve done all we can,” sighed Bishop. “We’ve used scare tactics.
. .and some of them just don’t want to take heed.
“It’s a sad way to remember your graduation when two people have been killed,” Bishop added.
The deaths bring to nine the number of fatalities on Prince George roads this year.
Police can't charge Air-India saboteurs
by RICK GIBBONS
CORK, Ireland (CP) — Police know “precisely” who was responsible for an explosion that ripped through the luggage hold of Air-India Flight 182 one year ago today, killing all 329 people on board, a senior Canadian government official with detailed knowledge of the criminal investigation has said.
However, the official, who spoke on condition he not’'be identified, said investigators so far lack the goods to guarantee criminal prosecution.
The official said investigators believed it would be better to prolong the investigation than put their case to the rigorous criteria of a criminal prosecution in which the suspects might get off.
He cited the enormity of the RCMP probe1 — the biggest in Canadian history — and obstacles created by the international scope of the inquiry for delays in bringing the suspects to justice.
For example, he said Japanese laws hinder the transfer of evidence relating to a domestic criminal investigation to foreign police services. Less than an hour before the Air-India jumbo jet plunged into the North Atlantic 120 nautical miles off the Irish coast, a bomb contained in luggage being unloaded from a CP-Air flight from Vancouver exploded at Tokyo’s Narita airport, killing two people.
It was suspected both explosions were caused by the same people and evidence in the Narita explosion is considered crucial to the RCMP probe into the Air-India disaster.
External Affairs Minister Joe Clark told reporters late Sunday the government is convinced the Air-India disaster was the work of terrorists. However, he too alluded to the lack of conclusive proof sufficient to warrant an immediate prosecution.
by DAVE PAULSON Staff reporter
Two Prince George teenagers are dead and two others are in hospital as a result of two single-vehicle traffic accidents connected with a Saturday night after-grad party near Nukko Lake.
Dead are driver Lee Cameron Taylor, 18, and his passenger, Leslie Dawn Norbeck, 17, who were pronounced dead on arrival at Prince George Regional Hospital after their four-wheel drive pickup truck went out of control on a gravel portion of Chief Lake Road. Police said the truck struck a farm fence and a row of trees. They were the vehicle’s lone occupants and police said neither wore seatbelts.
The accident occurred at about 12:30 a.m. Sunday, about four ki-
TAYLOR NORBECK
lometres north of the Nukko Lake store.
RCMP Sgt. Tom Bishop said the two Grade 11 students were on their way to a graduation-related outdoor party at Shell Lake, a small lake near Nukko, about 30 kilometres northwest of downtown Prince George.
They are the first graduation-related traffic deaths in Prince
I
I