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Not even a near-death experience can keep Tobie Lépine from flying.
Lépine, 28, was a passenger in his instructor’s ultralight airplane on June 6 when the plane crashed into the Ottawa River near Masson-Angers. Luckily, Daniel Maisonneuve was out on a boat ride on the river with his wife and children, with his mother and father in a second boat nearby.
Without hesitating, Maisonneuve jumped in the water and pushed Lépine to his parents’ boat. Then he went back to release the pilot from his seatbelt and pull him to safety. The plane sank into the water shortly after.
“If it wasn’t for those people I’d be dead,” said Lépine.
Tobie Lépine at the controls of his ultralight. Despite injuries that required surgery and a two-week stay in hospital, he considers himself ‘very lucky.’
He and the instructor, whose name has not be made public, had been out that day practising their float landing technique. After three successful attempts, they tried a fourth. It did not go as planned.
“The airplane was flipped on its side by the (15-knot) gusts during a turn just after takeoff … the left wing hit first at about 90 m.p.h. and the airplane basically destroyed on impact.”
What was going through his mind as the plane descended 500 feet? Lépine said there was no chance to think.
“There’s no time for fear, it’s basically on and wait for everything to stop,” said Lépine, who, despite losing about 45 minutes of memory upon impact, remembers releasing a safety clip from his inflatable float vest. He believes the vest, along with Maisonneuve’s help, contributed to his survival.
The Ottawa audio-visual technician is telling his story publicly for the first time so he can thank Maisonneuve and his family — “I cannot express my gratitude in words,” he says.
Daniel Maisonneuve talks to Gatineau police after rescuing the occupants of a light plane that crashed into the Ottawa River near Masson-Angers on June 6, 2015.
Lépine spent two weeks in Montreal hospital after surgery to fix a shattered vertebrae. While he sometimes needs a cane to walk, he considers himself “very lucky.”
He said Maisonneuve’s mother, Lorraine, took photos of the plane as it was about to hit the water. She brought printed copies to him in hospital.
“I still have one big framed in my kitchen of the plane sideways just about to hit the water,” he said.
Just two months after the crash, he was flying again to rebuild his confidence.
“I was back up in the air with another instructor (in August),” said Lépine, who has since invited the original instructor, who had to wear a neck brace and put “instruction aside” after the accident, to fly in his plane as a passenger.
On Oct. 10, Lépine participated in the WUFI 2015 (world ultralight fly-in) as the “Canadian ambassador” for the event. He continues to be involved in the ultralight community, promoting safety and recreational aviation.
As if the incident shake his confidence up in the air, he simply says: “I still don’t fear airplanes. I never did.”
pmccooey@ottawacitizen.com
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Lépine, 28, was a passenger in his instructor’s ultralight airplane on June 6 when the plane crashed into the Ottawa River near Masson-Angers. Luckily, Daniel Maisonneuve was out on a boat ride on the river with his wife and children, with his mother and father in a second boat nearby.
Without hesitating, Maisonneuve jumped in the water and pushed Lépine to his parents’ boat. Then he went back to release the pilot from his seatbelt and pull him to safety. The plane sank into the water shortly after.
“If it wasn’t for those people I’d be dead,” said Lépine.
Tobie Lépine at the controls of his ultralight. Despite injuries that required surgery and a two-week stay in hospital, he considers himself ‘very lucky.’
He and the instructor, whose name has not be made public, had been out that day practising their float landing technique. After three successful attempts, they tried a fourth. It did not go as planned.
“The airplane was flipped on its side by the (15-knot) gusts during a turn just after takeoff … the left wing hit first at about 90 m.p.h. and the airplane basically destroyed on impact.”
What was going through his mind as the plane descended 500 feet? Lépine said there was no chance to think.
“There’s no time for fear, it’s basically on and wait for everything to stop,” said Lépine, who, despite losing about 45 minutes of memory upon impact, remembers releasing a safety clip from his inflatable float vest. He believes the vest, along with Maisonneuve’s help, contributed to his survival.
The Ottawa audio-visual technician is telling his story publicly for the first time so he can thank Maisonneuve and his family — “I cannot express my gratitude in words,” he says.
Daniel Maisonneuve talks to Gatineau police after rescuing the occupants of a light plane that crashed into the Ottawa River near Masson-Angers on June 6, 2015.
Lépine spent two weeks in Montreal hospital after surgery to fix a shattered vertebrae. While he sometimes needs a cane to walk, he considers himself “very lucky.”
He said Maisonneuve’s mother, Lorraine, took photos of the plane as it was about to hit the water. She brought printed copies to him in hospital.
“I still have one big framed in my kitchen of the plane sideways just about to hit the water,” he said.
Just two months after the crash, he was flying again to rebuild his confidence.
“I was back up in the air with another instructor (in August),” said Lépine, who has since invited the original instructor, who had to wear a neck brace and put “instruction aside” after the accident, to fly in his plane as a passenger.
On Oct. 10, Lépine participated in the WUFI 2015 (world ultralight fly-in) as the “Canadian ambassador” for the event. He continues to be involved in the ultralight community, promoting safety and recreational aviation.
As if the incident shake his confidence up in the air, he simply says: “I still don’t fear airplanes. I never did.”
pmccooey@ottawacitizen.com
Related
查看原文...
