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Slave Lake, Alta. (CP) — The bodies of the pilot and co-pilot of a twin-engined Beechcraft that crashed into a heavily treed hill near this northwestern Alberta community Monday night were recovered from the plane wreckage early today. The pilot, Capt. Bill Grosenick, and co pilot, Banshi Ghelani, both of Slave Lake, had been missing but presumed dead following the rescue of the passengers aboard the aircraft. RCMP said the badly-burned bodies found in the wreckage would be taken to Edmonton for an autopsy. Transport Ministry officials, started combing through the remains of the aircraft and the crash site, about 125 miles northwest of Edmonton, was to be closed for two or three days during the investigation. Nine others survived the crash, with Constable Grant Johnston of Vancouver, a 27-year-old RCMP officer, and John Bahrynowski, a 27-year-old oilfield worker from Slave Lake, credited with dragging the passengers from the flam ing wreckage. MAY HAVE CAUGHT TREES Mr. Bahrynowski, who was not seriously injured, said Tuesday the plane turned into a ‘‘burning coffin’’ when it fell to the ground upside down after apparently snagging tree tops during a snowstorm. “We were all hanging upside down in our seat belts... . There were flames everywhere you looked and we were breathing nothing but flames,”’ he said. “T was stunned for a couple of seconds. I just said ‘this is it’ and a lot of things flashed through my mind,” Mr. Bahry nowski said. Passenger Susan Wilson, 25, a nurse from Berwyn, Alta., located the safety latch to the door and unlocked it, and Constable Johnston kicked open the door. Once outside, Mr... Pahrynowski and Constable Johnston helped the other passengers out of the flaming plane. Within a minute of the last evacuation, the fuselage was engulfed in flames. The fire burned for more than five hours, passengers said. The passengers huddled around a fire built by Mr. Bahrynowski for about four hours in falling snow and below-freezing temperature before being rescued by a volunteer squad. Other surviving passengers were: Maureen Pletsch, 28, Ruth Nuttall, 48, her son Andrew, 7, and Mirian Anderson, 28, all of Slave Lake, Dr. John D. Wood, 67, of High Prairie, Alta., and Daryl Reimer, 31, of Peace River, Alta. It was the second crash involving the same pilot and aircraft within a month. Greg Wollokoff, president of the air craft maintenance firm Rush’n Tran sport Ltd., said he was in Slave Lake at the time of the earlier incident and spent about two hours on the telephone with Beechcraft officials at Wichita, Kan... trying to resolve a problem with the ill fated craft’s nose wheel. Mr. Wolokoff said the nose wheel could not be lowered because of a break in the mechanism. The pilot was forced to crash land with the nose wheel up.
Newspaper Details
Medicine Hat News
Medicine Hat, Alberta, CA
Wed, Dec 31, 1975
Page 1
Full Page
Clipped by
Mike U.
CA 05 Jul 2026
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