Okanagan plane crash kills a Surrey man, injures three

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PEACHLAND (NEWS1130) – There’s a sad local link to the deadly plane crash that happened in the Okanagan region, west of Kelowna yesterday.

Jayson Dallas Wesley Smith, 30, of Surrey was killed in the crash. Smith, who went by the name Dallas, was a young pilot who was heading to Penticton to hang out with his girlfriend.

The three others on board all suffered critical injuries when their twin-engine Piper Comanche went down Monday afternoon in a remote area not far from the community of Peachland.

Smith was the pilot on the trip from the Lower Mainland to the Okanagan, but it’s unclear if he was at the controls on the return flight that crashed.

A man and woman are being treated in Kelowna. A second woman is being treated in Kamloops.

“It looks like the woman that’s at Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops is expected to be sent to Vancouver General,” says Cst. Kris Clark with Kelowna RCMP.

Rescue Co-Ordination Centre confirmed the private plane had taken off from Penticton and was heading to Boundary Bay.

A passing WestJet plane spotted the crash and alerted rescuers, but a spokeswoman for the BC Ambulance Service says crews had difficulty pinpointing and reaching the site near the old Brenda Mine, off Highway 97C.

The crash occurred in the same area where a de Havilland Beaver crashed in a ball of flame in May, killing all three aboard and, at the time, witnesses said that aircraft appeared to be trying to gain altitude but could not climb quickly enough to avoid the steep terrain.

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