Into The Abyss An Extraordinary True Story – Carol Shaben

Now more than ever, Hoppy knew it was vitally important for his ground search crew to get in. He ended his call and looked over at his constable. “It’s the prime minister!” she told him. Hopkins took the call. Sure enough, it was Canada’s head of government, Brian Mulroney, on the line from Ottawa. He’d met Larry Shaben on at least one occasion and wanted confirmation that he, Notley and the other passengers on board were alive.

Hopkins couldn’t give it to him. Aboard the Hercules called in to replace its ailing predecessor, Major Hazen Codner was having a hell of a time. For an hour the second Herc had lumbered blindly through churning fists of grey above the crash site, yet the forty-two-year-old lead navigator had been unable to pick up a signal from the downed plane.

Codner, who’d been briefed prior to the Herc’s hasty departure from Edmonton at 5:48 that morning, had expected conditions to be a challenge. Crew aboard the previous Hercules had reported that the ELT signal had been in turns intermittently weak and distorted. But Codner hadn’t expected it would be non-existent. He was voicing his frustration to the pilot, when the ELT signal inexplicably re- emerged.

Codner immediately got to work plotting a bearing. Though he’d been hurried and half-awake when pressed into action, he was grateful for one piece of good fortune: when he’d grabbed his navigation bag, it happened to contain a topographical map of the area. Now, each time the Hercules passed over the signal and the directional needle swung 180 degrees, Codner manually plotted the position on his map. He’d been at it thirty minutes when the ELT signal disappeared.

Codner and the pilot began discussing a possible explanation. Had the battery for the ELT suddenly died? The topo map showed hilly terrain below, which might account for spotty transmission, but not the signal’s alternating reappearance and disappearance. The pilot circled the giant Herc once more. After another half-hour spiralling the area, the ELT signal again reemerged. Codner realized with a jolt that someone below had to be alive and cycling the switch. The crew aboard the Hercules was accustomed to jumping into crash sites and finding only dead bodies.

The prospect of survivors on the ground gave them a renewed sense of urgency, and Codner redoubled his efforts to pinpoint the crash location. Staring at the intersecting lines, he was 90 percent certain that the location of the plane was on a high hill west of Slave Lake. He shared his findings with the pilot and suggested he approach the crash site from the northeast, descending low over the wide lake where there were no terrain hazards.

Copyright © 2012 Carol Shaben Flight route based on an original, copyright © 1984 Library and Archives Canada. Canadian Aviation Safety Board Civil Aviation Occurrence Report, Wapiti Aviation Ltd. Piper Navajo Chieftain PA-31-350 C-GXUC, High Prairie, Alberta, 20 mi SE, October 19, 1984. Report Number 84-H40006, Appendix B. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Published in 2012 by Random House Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, and simultaneously in the United States of America by Grand Central Publishing, a division of the Hachette Book Group, and in the United Kingdom by Macmillan Publishers Limited. Distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited. www.randomhouse.ca Random House Canada and colophon are registered trademarks. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Shaben, Carol Into the abyss : how a deadly plane crash changed the lives of a pilot, a politician, a criminal and a cop / Carol Shaben.

eISBN: 978-0-307-36024-3 1. Airplane crash survival—Alberta, Northern. 2. Commuter aircraft—Accidents—Alberta, Northern. 3. Aircraft accidents—Alberta, Northern. I. Title. TL553.9.S53 2012 363.12′4 C2012-902072-9 Maps by Andrew Roberts Cover Design by Mario Arturo Image Credits: Joni Niemelä v3.1 OceanofPDF.com For Riyad OceanofPDF.com SOUTHERN BRITISH COLUMBIA COAST OceanofPDF.com OVERLAND RESCUE ROUTE AND CRASH SITE OceanofPDF.com Flight route based on an original, copyright © 1984 Library and Archives Canada.

Canadian Aviation Safety Board Civil Aviation Occurrence Report, Wapiti Aviation Ltd. Piper Navajo Chieftain PA-31-350 C-GXUC, High Prairie, Alberta, 20 mi SE, October 19, 1984. Report Number 84-H40006, Appendix B. OceanofPDF.com It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure. JOSEPH CAMPBELL OceanofPDF.com CONTENTS Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Map Epigraph INTRODUCTION PART I DEPARTURE IMPACT PART II FLIGHT WAPITI PART III THRESHOLD BURIED FIRE MISSING CONFESSION SEARCH ABORT CRIMINAL ICE RESCUE Photo Insert PART IV HERO INQUEST AFTERLIFE FATE ATONEMENT RETURN EPILOGUE: SURVIVORS NOTES IMAGE CREDITS SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS About the Author OceanofPDF.com I INTRODUCTION first learned of my father’s plane crash from the Jerusalem Post.

I was twenty-two and working as a journalist in the Middle East. The crash happened on October 19, 1984, but I didn’t find out about it until two days later. I was sitting at my old metal desk with a cup of mint tea and the morning paper. That day it wasn’t regional conflict or politics that caught my attention, but the headline of a short news item buried at the bottom of an inside page: Party Leader Killed in Alberta Plane Crash.

The article was tiny—fewer than fifty words—but its impact was staggering.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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