A 71-year-old Ashern man was found dehydrated but otherwise unharmed after getting stranded on Pickerel Lake while flying from Ashern to a camp at Sisib Lake, near Grand Rapids.
The pilot was reported missing Jan. 13 around 6:45 p.m. when he didn’t arrive at his destination. He had left Ashern that morning.
The Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Trenton, Ont. deployed a Hercules search plane, which discovered a small fire on Pickerel Lake, just west of Sisib Lake, in the early morning hours of Jan. 14. Canadian Armed Forces Search and Rescue Technicians (SAR Techs) could not parachute down to the site because of bad weather, so they requested that RCMP conduct a snowmobile patrol to investigate the fire and locate the pilot.
Grand Rapids RCMP, the Canadian Rangers and Manitoba Sustainable Development staff travelled about 45 kilometres by snowmobile to the fire. When the weather improved around 6:30 a.m., two SAR Techs parachuted to the site and found the pilot, who was dehydrated but in good spirits. He received medical treatment and the snowmobile searchers arrived at the site around 2:30 p.m. The SAR Techs and the pilot were picked up by a helicopter about two hours later.
The pilot told rescuers he had landed safely at Pickerel Lake but mechanical issues with his plane left him stranded when he tried to depart.
