A friend of mine was planing on attending an Edmonton Oilers hockey game. On discovering that three of his friends were also going, on a whim he offered to take them for a pre-game night flight in his twin engined Piper Aztec airplane. A ‘light twin’ in aviation parlance. It was a full moon, snow was thick on the ground and the forecast called for clear skies with a low of minus 25 degrees Celsius. Not untypical Edmonton deep winter conditions. He and his buddies got more than they bargained for and never did make it to the game.

The aircraft was hangared at the Edmonton municipal airport located close to downtown and not far from the hockey stadium. He figured on a half hour flight and planned take off for six pm. Plenty of time on landing to get to the game. Given the intensely cold winter conditions, he made good and sure the engines were up to operating temperature before leaving the ramp and taxiing to the end of the runway.  

On receiving take off clearance, once in position he advanced the throttles to full power. They headed down the recently snowplowed runway lifting off after covering about two thirds of it’s length. A perfectly normal take off. He retracted the landing gear. Reaching the airfield’s circuit height of 1,000 feet my friend made a standard left turn exit from the circuit and climbed to 3,000 feet his passengers admiring the moonlit view of the very spread out and brightly illuminated city.

Without any indication on the instrument panel that there might be a developing problem, the port (left) engine suddenly stopped and would not restart. My friend was glad he was flying a twin. The argument for twins over single engine aircraft is the fact that they are designed to fly on one engine. Insurance if ever there was any. An engine failure with a single engine aircraft necessitates an immediate glide down hopefully to a very close and suitable open field.

With the remaining engine still set to full power from the take off and climb he feathered the failed engine’s propeller to reduce drag. However it soon became obvious that they were not maintaining their altitude. The starboard engine was not developing the horse power it was by design capable of. Losing altitude quickly, there was no option but to land as soon as possible. He radioed a Mayday and requested an immediate return to the runway. With no other aircraft in the circuit or vicinity this was quickly granted however he soon realised their rate of decent was too great to make it back to the strip. There was no option but to make an immediate forced landing and hope for the best. They all cinched their seat belts as tight as possible.

They were over farmers’ fields all of which deep in snow. He elected to leave the wheels in the retracted position and land on the aircraft’s belly hoping the deep snow would cushion the impact. Wheels down he figured would result in a much worse result. They would probably nose over and quite likely burst into flames. Perhaps they would nose over anyway. He advised the tower of his intention and gave his approximate position this being long before GPS was standard in aircraft cockpits. The moonlight helped him pick out a large field straight ahead, not that he had much choice in the matter given the rate of descent.

He touched down keeping the nose slightly elevated hoping to avoid any chance of a nose over. A closed gate loomed ahead before much speed had bled off. They did not nose over however they hit the centre of the gate, passing clean through as both wings were ripped off by the gate posts. As he said to me on describing the incident “now we had a pretty good toboggan”. With no means of braking they careened through the snow totally out of control for about two hundred feet. Amazingly they finally came to a stop with none of them having suffered any significant injuries.

Still fearing a fire they quickly tumbled from the plane and into the extreme cold. No fire materialised and by great good fortune they were only about 100 yards from a farmhouse. There was a light on so hopefully someone was home. Struggling through the unbroken snow dressed only in regular indoor clothing for the flight and the hockey game, they very quickly became hypothermic. They had to find warmth quickly before the hypothermia became life threatening. The accident being before the advent of cell phones, they had no way of letting anyone including the control tower know that they were on the ground and safe. This not withstanding the immediate threat presented by the extreme cold conditions. They quickly made it to the farmhouse.

Frenetic heavy knocking on the front door produced no response. Getting colder by the minute, they tried another entrance to no avail. Very quickly growing acutely anxious, they next pounded on various windows. Eventually they saw someone inside – they were safe they thought. Except that they weren’t. The only occupant they could see was a young woman. If she was alone as seemed to be the case, she would not be the likeliest person to open the door of an isolated farmhouse to four male strangers ill dressed for the arctic conditions!

Shivering uncontrollably by then, hearts pumping, concerned for their lives and with shock setting in as the initial adrenalin rush triggered by the accident wore off, they tried shouting through the glass that they had been in a plane crash. Sure, she might have been thinking, that’s what they all say. The wrecked fuselage that had been their ‘toboggan’ was not visible from the farmhouse which of course did not help their now desperate and pleading cause. The woman remained resolute and who could blame her? This could well have been an elaborate rouse to enable criminal activity. She was having none of it.

With the extreme cold biting at them every moment making rational thought extremely difficult, they eventually realised that if they could just get the woman to phone the airport’s control tower they would confirm their story. The tower of course knew that they must be down somewhere not too far distant from the airfield. Shouting through the double if not triple glazed windows protecting against the long northern Alberta winter, they finally succeeded in getting their message through and understood. She made the call and moments later let them in. My friend then spoke with the control tower manager who, as required by law, in turn notified the police of the crash, the location and the condition of the pilot and his passengers. The police would be along presently to investigate the accident.

The woman it turned out was indeed the only person home. My friend told her that the police would be coming soon to investigate the crash. Seemingly she quickly became overtly alarmed and nervous at the prospect of a police visit. She quickly produced hot drinks and some food and then, appearing more nervous by the minute, disappeared into another part of the building. It was at this point that the survivors, eyeing their surroundings more closely, noticed a number of marijuana plants behind a chesterfield. 

Legalized marijuana in Canada was years into the future. The men surmised that likely there was more marijuana growing throughout the farmhouse and perhaps other buildings on site. Given that by admitting them into her home the woman almost certainly had saved them from a slow agonizing death by exposure, they did not hesitate to help the cause. They located the woman (busily moving numerous plants to an adjacent building) and explained their willingness to help her hide the evidence before the police arrived. Fearing they did not have much time they set about the task with gusto.

There were it turned out about forty plants all in thriving condition. Working like fury the five of them succeeded in getting the entire crop into the adjacent and windowless building (designed as such no doubt for situations akin to that at hand.) The goods were safely under lock and key. While they had all been busy with the move, the police had phoned leaving a voice mail saying they were on their way from Edmonton. It was to be another half hour before they would arrive. Lots of time to do one last check that all the plants were accounted for and in the other building. They had survived a plane crash and got away with aiding and abetting a grow operation. They never did make the hockey game. 

The official enquiry into the crash concluded that recent but botched maintenance on the failed engine had led to a situation that under some circumstances might result in a failure to maintain full power once airborne. Clearly those circumstances had occurred. This in spite of the fact that full power was reached on the ground in the run up before take off and during the take off. Scary stuff. Light twins are notorious for having marginal single engine performance at best. If you consider flying in one make sure the pilot has a lot of recent hours on the type.