Police release names of three Nunavik plane crash victims

The Piper 23, or Aztec, is the type of plane that crashed outside of Kangirsuk June 11, killing three. (IMAGE COURTESY OF PILOTFRIEND.COM)

Quebec provincial police have released the names of the three people who died June 11 when their small aircraft crashed outside of Kangirsuk, on Nunavik’s Ungava Bay.

The passengers were father and son Robert Drapeau, 48 and Alexandre Veilleux, 23, from Val d’Or, and the pilot was Jean Robert Corbin, 77, from Winnipeg.

The men were flying in a private twin-engined Piper 23, sometimes referred to as an Aztec, which is believed to have left Val d’Or earlier June 11.

The Kativik Regional Government said its transportation department received an emergency locator transmitter signal that evening coming from about two kilometres inland of Kangirsuk, indicating the aircraft had touched ground.

The following morning, a Hercules aircraft dispatched by the Canadian Forces’ Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Trenton, Ont. located the crash site and recovered the bodies of the three men.

The purpose of the men’s trip remains unclear.

On June 15, the Transportation Safety Board said it has decided not to conduct a full investigation into the crash.

“We don’t investigate all crashes,” said TSB spokeswoman Julie Leroux. “We don’t think it will advance airline safety.”

Instead, the TSB is working with the Sûreté du Québec, which has sent an investigator to the Nunavik community to look at the circumstances around the crash, along with the Kativik Regional Police Force and Quebec’s coroner’s office.

While rumours in Nunavik allege the trip may have been criminal in nature, the SQ said it could not confirm anything at this moment.