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The Prince George
Citizen
MONDAY, AUGUST 25,1986
40 CENTS
Wife brings back mate 3 Arms sales suspicious 5 Youngster wins Simon 11
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City, B.C..........
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THREE MEN MOURNED
Family and friends are shocked following a plane crash Friday afternoon which claimed the lives of three Prince George men.
Pilot Leonard Brian Fenton, 37, and passengers Stanley Pa-nasiuk, 42, and Brian Hart, 44, were killed in the crash near Tweedsmuir Park when the Cessna 182 they were in crashed after an aborted landing attempt at a wilderness runway near Ootsa Lake, about 100 km south of Burns Lake.
The three men were on their way to do maintenance work on a walk-in cooler at Fraser Lake Mills logging camp on Ootsa Lake when the accident happened.
“Stan went in his own environment. He was quite a hunter and fisherman,” said Pana-siuk’s cousin and co-worker Pete Sherba. The three victims knew each other for some time, Sherba said. Panasiuk was Fenton’s hunting and fishing buddy.
Fenton and Hart were em-
ployed at Harvey’s Plumbing and Heating Ltd. and Panasiuk worked for Lakewood Electric Ltd. in Prince George.
The airplane, which belonged to Fenton’s boss, Dwayne Harvey, was apparently circling a private grass airstrip when, on the third pass, it hit trees at one end of the runway.
“It’s a very big tragedy,” said Jennine Walker, who worked with Fenton and Hart.
The Canadian Aviation Safety Board, B.C. Coroner’s Service and RCMP are investigating the accident. Autopsies on the three men were being done at Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster today.
Funeral services will be held at Assman’s Funeral Chapel for Fenton at 10:30 a.m. Thursday, Panasiuk at 1 p.m. Thursday and Hart at 10:30 a.m. Friday.
Ian Marshall of the coroner’s office in Burnaby said a preliminary report on the accident is not expected for about six weeks.
Rick Hansen sets out on home stretch
CAPE SPEAR, Nfld. (CP) -With jig music and colorful send-offs ringing in his ears, Rick Hansen left Cape Spear this morning to begin crossing Canada on the final leg of his world tour.
“Leffer go for gullies, God loves ya,” Jane Crosbie said to the wheelchair athlete as he was leaving the most easterly point in North America. Crosbie, the wife of federal Transport Minister John Crosbie, was urging Hansen to give it his all.
The prompting was unnecessary for the young Canadian who already has behind him 17 months of roadways, rattlesnakes and rigorous travel. He has travelled 33 countries and 28,300 kilometres raising money for spinal cord research.
“I’ve been through a few wars,” Hansen said Sunday after arriving in St. John’s by small plane. “My arms are still sore but I feel really excited.”
About 300 gathered at Cape Spear toat Cape Spear to see him off on what he considers the toughest part of his journey yet — 13,000 kilometres across his native Canada.
At the ceremonies this morning, John Crosbie, who represents the area, described Hansen’s round-the-world journey as a "marvellous feat of persistence, discipline and spirit.
. . .and in tomorrow's Citizen...
Communications is the key and French power the buzzword as the Tories begin what they hope is their reconquest of Quebec. Details in Tuesday’s Prince George Citizen.
Also planned:
■ A review of the medal harvest by Prince George athletes at the B.C. summer swimming champin-ships.
■ A complete recap of news from today’s city council meeting.
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'I was rubbing two sticks together and discovered first-degree burns/'
Blast shatters trailer
Bill Hinks and his family talk with Prince George fire department personnel Saturday afternoon after their travel trailer was destroyed by an explosion at Fifth Avenue and Carney Street. Fire department deputy chief
Mike Dornbierer said the explosion was caused by a leaking propane tank but the source of ignition is unknown at this time. There were no injuries as a result of the explosion. Citizen photo by Dave Milne
Fumes from lake kill 2,000
“I consider him to be a true Canadian hero, a man of super-hu-man qualities and doer of greater deeds.”
Hansen, who showed a particular warmth for the children who crowded around him, was accompanied by a large entourage of motorcycles, reporters, photographers and cameramen when he left Cape Spear at about 11 a.m.
The first day of his Canadian tour took him only as far as St. John’s, about an hour away. All along the 20-kilometre route, Newfoundlanders lined the roads to wish him well. In the capital, he was scheduled to attend more ceremonies, a luncheonhand a banquet.
After today, he hopes to keep up his average of about 80 kilometres a day, using up one pair of gloves and a set of tires for his specially designed wheelchair each week. But first there is an itinerary jammed with activities, including a birthday party.
Hansen, who at 15 was paralysed from the waist down in an automobile accident, turns 29 on Tuesday.
The marathoner who’s been dubbed the Man in Motion arrived Sunday at a private hangar, and was welcomed by a small crowd of well-wishers and about twice as many news media people.
“I can smell the barn, I know we’re closer,” Hansen said.
He was accompanied this morning to St. John’s by Mel Fitzgerald, the Newfoundlander who in 1978 introduced Hansen to wheelchair track when the native of Williams Lake, B.C., was primarily into basketball.
Hansen said he spent his past few days of rest psyching himself up to return to the arduous task ahead.
“But I can’t think of a better place to have the toughest part of the journey happen — here, home amongst friends.”
Hansen hopes to arrive back in British Columbia next April or May. He started his tour in Vancouver on March 21, 1985, and has since travelled through Australia, Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the United States.
From AP-AFP-CP
YAOUNDE (CP) — At least 2,000 people were killed by toxic gas fumes spewing from the volcanic Lake Nios in the northwestern region of Cameroon, Information Minister Georges Ngango said today.
Ngango described the casualty toll as provisional since rescue teams had so far been unable to reach the site of the disaster.
The figure had been compiled by a special emergency unit put into operation soon after an explosion which caused the escape of the fumes Friday evening, he added.
Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres arrived today in Cameroon to renew diplomatic ties broken off 13 years ago.
His special plane also brought a group of Israeli doctors, nurses and medical and toxic gas fighting equipment in the first foreign aid to reach Cameroon following the disaster.
The government said international relief efforts also involved the United States, Britain and France.
On Sunday, the government said the toxic fumes killed 40, although travellers from the area said up to 1,000 people may have died.
Canadian Ambassador Marc Faguy said today the Cameroon government appeared to have the situation under control.
He told The Canadian Press in a telephone interview he has no report whether the victims included any Canadians.
“There are not many Canadians in the region affected by the fume, but we are watching the situation,” he said.
About 600 Canadians are in Cameroon with 200 of them living in Yaounde, the ambassador said.
“Everything appears to be under control,”
At least 2,000 people have been killed by a natural gas leak in Cameroon.
Faguy said of the situation as seen from the capital.
He said Cameroon authorities have not officially asked Canada for technical assistance be-
cause they “are still trying to determine their needs”
Cameroon Government sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Sunday the death toll was thought to be about 300, while a journalist who accompanied President Paul Biya to the region near the Nigerian border that day said only that there were "many victims.”
The leak of hydrogen sulphide — a flammable, colorless gas which smells like rotten eggs — from Lake Nios near Wum, about 320 kilometres northwest of Yaounde, was a "geological castastrophe,” a government communique said.
Hydrogen sulphide usually is formed by putrefaction, such as the decomposition of organic matter found in most volcanic gases. The lake lies in a volcanic crater.
At least three villages were affected by the leak, which began Friday. Biya declared the zone a disaster area, said a second government communique.
Yaounde Radio said the leak had claimed many victims and the situation had worsened.
The government called for international aid to cope with the disaster and said the United States and Britain agreed to supply logistical support for evacuation of villagers and "appropriate types of equipment.” France offered unspecified help.
Biya visited Bamenda, 48 kilometres south of Wum, to oversee rescue operations, and returned to Yaounde late Sunday. State-run radio said his trip was to show solidarity with the "disaster-stricken population.”
On Aug. 16, 1984, toxic fumes from a lake in a volcanic crater in Djindoum killed 36 people, said reports at the time. That lake lies in the same mountain chain as Nios.
Fire damages Suncor plant
FORT McMURRAY, Alta. (CP) — A fire at the Suncor Inc. oil sands plant, which one witness said could set back plant operations for three to six months, was brought under control today about three hours after it broke out.
Company spokesman Wayne Antler said the fire started in an area of the plant where bitumen is upgraded into synthetic crude oil.
Firefighters from the Suncor and Syncrude Canada Ltd. oil sands
plants brought the flames at the Suncor facility under control.
There were no injuries and firefighters from the nearby city of Fort McMurray were not called in to help.
More than 1,000 Suncor employees have been involved in a strike-lockout since May 1 at the northeastern Alberta plant.
Witness John Tyler, an employee of Intercon Power, a contractor at the plant, said the fire appears to
be a major catastrophe that could set back plant operations for up to six months.
The upgrading area was engulfed in flames after a distillation unit collapsed onto plant No. 7 at about 5 a.m., Tyler said.
The plant, which opened in 1967, has been producing almost 60,000 barrels of oil a day this year. The Syncrude and Suncor plants have a history of fires that sometimes curtailed production.
Air travellers left stranded
By The Canadian Press
Hundreds of travellers across Western Canada were left holding tickets to nowhere Sunday as Frontier Airlines shut down operations without notice at Vancouver, Saskatoon, Regina and Winnipeg.
The abrupt cancellation of flights was part of a system-wide shutdown which threw 4,700 employees out of work and stranded about 17,000 passengers in the four Canadian and 51 western American cities.
Many travellers were angry but there were some exceptions.
Adele Kovacks of Los Angeles paid $700 for a one-way ticket home from Saskatoon on Pacific Western Airlines after her Frontier flight was cancelled. She said she felt sorry for Frontier.
The airline’s owner, People Ex-
press Inc. of New Jersey, issued a statement saying there was no other choice: “Frontier is out of funds.”
There was no warning. Passengers arrived at aiiports expecting to catch flights and were left glowering at signs informing them the airline, which has been losing $10 million a month since People Express bought it last fall, was grounded.
Greta Pronskus was going home to Las Vegas from Winnipeg when she arrived at the airport to find an empty Frontier counter.
"I wanted to ... be home at nine o’clock,” she said. "Now we come
here to find this and there’s no one to talk to, not even to say how to go or to ask how to get home.”
Carrie Ruschman, 12, was trying
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to fly home to Regina from Winnipeg. An anonymous Winnipegger paid her way on an another airline.
At Saskatoon, about 60 travellers to the U.S. were stranded and the switchboard at the Frontier counter was lit up, with no one there to answer it.
Mohindar Sachdeve’s wife was stranded in Minneapolis. He said he is afraid he will not get his money back and called the turn of events a ripoff.
Hundreds of tourists going home from Expo 86 were stranded in Vancouver.
"It’s a disaster,” fumed Duncan Dickey, 37, as he scrambled to find another flight to Dallas, Tex.
^ Many who had booked seats with Frontier were advised to make their own way to Seattle, Wash.
Hostage
charges
expected
A 39-year-old Quesnel man is expected to be charged today in connection with a five-hour, hostage-taking incident Sunday in Quesnel in the BC Rail yard.
Quesnel RCMP received a complaint at about 4 p.m. about a man holding a woman, believed to be his wife, at gunpoint near the rail bridge near Dragon Lake hill.
Rail traffic was stopped while RCMP negotiated with the man, who was armed with a rifle, for about four hours during which time he walked his hostage up and down the track.
About 10 members of the Prince George RCMP emergency response team were called in to assist Quesnel RCMP. The man was confined to the track area in the main rail yard in Quesnel.
At about 8 p.m. the man released his hostage.
RCMP believe the incident resulted from a domestic dispute.