A Manitoba Hydro employee and a pilot flying a helicopter for a company contracted by the utility died when they flew too close to a hydro line in dense bush near Cranberry Portage, crash investigators have determined.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada stated, in a seven-page report released on Wednesday, a Bell 206 helicopter contracted to Manitoba Hydro from Custom Helicopters of St. Andrews crashed to the ground and burned on Aug. 9, 2007, at about 9 a.m., after the craft's skid landing gear got caught on the highest wire on a power line between Flin Flon and Cranberry Portage.
The pilot, Robin Garnet Maxwell, 25, died in the wreckage while passenger Blake Edward Hunter, 26, was killed after being thrown from or falling out of the craft and dropping to the ground.
Both men were from Thompson.
The TSB's Peter Hildebrand said crash investigators could figure out why the helicopter crashed to the ground, but they don't know why it was flying so close to the hydro line.
"We can't really make out exactly what happened because no one was there," Hildebrand said.
"It shouldn't have been that low because it was carrying people from one place to another. It wasn't inspecting the (hydro) line.
"We will never know the reason."
The TSB report stated once the helicopter's skid gear became entangled in the upper wire -- a ground wire not carrying electricity -- it struck a hydro tower and then crashed to the ground.
Hildebrand said there was light rain in Flin Flon at the time, but even if that was the weather at the crash site it shouldn't have prevented the pilot from seeing the wires.
Hildebrand said Hydro is already looking at a TSB finding that the utility does not have an audit procedure which might have pointed out the need for helicopter pilots working on hydro jobs to take specialized training for operating around power lines.
In an unusual move the TSB also noted it was informed that before the crash, some of the private company's helicopter pilots were transferred off Hydro contract because they "had refused to operate their helicopters under certain types of hazardous conditions."
The TSB pointed out this doesn't appear to have contributed to the crash.
Hildebrand said the TSB was told by more than one source that some pilots "had a perception of pressure to operate under hazardous conditions" when working for Manitoba Hydro.
"We thought it would only be fair of us to report that," he said.
kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca
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