0:05

judgment studio.

0:18

If you're lucky, very,

0:20

very lucky. You get

0:22

to grow up with siblings.

0:26

That you the

0:28

lack of better word, you

0:31

love. Growing

0:33

up. I didn't say, a a knucklehead brothers.

0:35

I love

0:38

you. What

0:41

time I've come to realize that I do in

0:43

fact love them,

0:47

more than love them, and

0:49

there are lots of horrors associated

0:52

with trauma. I know this, but the

0:54

gift of trauma. At

0:57

an early age is that it forges

0:59

a type of sibling relationship that

1:02

sometimes I don't see from

1:05

families that had an easier go of it.

1:08

I've witnessed brothers grown

1:11

men who grew up together in the

1:13

same home after a long time

1:15

apart greet each other by

1:17

shaking hands. By

1:20

nodding hello. What?

1:24

Those of us that emerged from

1:26

trauma households, we greet each other

1:29

with bear hugs. Jumping

1:31

on each other's back souplexes and

1:33

atomic wedges, every touch,

1:35

every smack upside to head a

1:37

reminder, a celebration that

1:40

we made it through. And

1:43

my brothers, they

1:45

both passed on too

1:47

early. Far far

1:49

too early, but if

1:52

I get to see them again in

1:55

the next life, One

1:58

thing I can absolutely guarantee is

2:00

that day. That

2:02

day, there won't be no shaking

2:04

hands. No polite, no

2:07

way. There will be joy. And

2:10

for everyone that has

2:12

been to the edge and looked over.

2:16

To then snap judgement, we'd

2:19

probably present into

2:22

the abyss. My

2:25

name is Lumber Washington. And if

2:27

you've never dipped your siblings' hands

2:29

in hot sauce while they were sleeping,

2:33

You should. You

2:35

really should when

2:38

you're listening to

2:40

step judgment. We

2:47

began by taking you back

2:49

to the year nineteen eighty eight. Instances

2:52

of listeners should know that today's episode

2:54

doesn't fall of a plane crash in which

2:56

since the lies were lost. And

2:59

nineteen eighty eight, a young journalist based in

3:01

Jerusalem, Carol Shabin. She

3:03

comes across tragic news that's taken place

3:06

six thousand miles away. Your

3:08

hometown in Northern Canada.

3:11

Snap judgment. Wapiti

3:14

got into big trouble back in October

3:16

of nineteen eighty four when one of its

3:18

planes crashed into a hill on approach

3:20

to a tiny community north of Edmonton.

3:23

Six people died, including Alberta

3:25

NDP leader, Rat nothing. Before

3:27

others, including a cabinet minister, Escape

3:30

without serious injury. It

3:34

was October nineteenth nineteen

3:36

eighty four, and I was

3:38

working at a news

3:40

agency in Jerusalem. And so

3:43

on this particular morning, I

3:45

was sitting at my desk And

3:48

I was going through the

3:50

Jerusalem Post, and I just remember

3:53

flipping through. And it

3:55

was a headline that jumped out at me

3:57

and that said party leader

3:59

killed in Alberta plane crash.

4:02

And Albert is my home province

4:05

in Canada, and I zoomed in

4:07

on this article. And I

4:09

remember it so clearly, it was just a tiny

4:12

block of text, less than fifty words.

4:15

But it said Grant Notley,

4:18

the leader of the new Democratic Party

4:20

in Alberta, and five other people

4:22

were killed in a crash of their twin engine

4:25

plane. And it went on

4:27

to talk about one of the

4:29

people on the plane, and

4:32

his name was Larry Shaben, my

4:34

father. I

4:38

was staggered

4:41

by this. And immediately

4:45

I dropped the paper and I called home.

4:48

And I was frantic. I

4:50

couldn't somehow believe that

4:53

I didn't know what had happened. I didn't know

4:55

if my dad was alive or dead. I

4:57

didn't know anything. And was

5:00

feeling so far away. And

5:03

my mom got on the phone and

5:05

she just said to me, he's okay.

5:08

He's okay. The

5:12

crash happened in October, and

5:14

I couldn't get off work and

5:16

get back to Canada. Until

5:18

Christmas. And I remember

5:21

seeing my dad and just

5:23

not being able to put these two things

5:25

together, this image in head

5:28

of this crash, and my dad who

5:30

seemed fine. I mean, he had

5:32

been terribly beaten up. His face

5:34

was mangled. They were all of these

5:36

injuries, but none of that was visible to me

5:38

when I got home. But

5:41

I think, you know, something had change.

5:44

Some There was something subdued, something

5:48

kind of profoundly sad and

5:50

error that hung around and that had

5:52

never been there before. My

5:58

dad was always larger than life.

6:01

For me, he was just dad, but

6:03

for everyone else, he was this respected

6:06

politician. People called him

6:08

the honorable Larry Schabin. And

6:11

I remember going to his favorite

6:14

Chinese restaurant in Edmonton.

6:16

And the owner would come out and greet him and

6:19

say governor, hello governor, how are you

6:21

and there would be this flurry of kind of

6:23

attention and activity around

6:25

him and you could just get the sense

6:27

that people were treating him

6:29

in very special way. He

6:34

didn't really want to talk to me

6:36

about what had happened. He'd kind of put

6:38

it away in a you know, like,

6:41

bearing something in a box and putting it under

6:43

your bed. It was just a closed

6:46

chapter of his life.

6:52

One of those least injured was Harry Schaben,

6:55

Alberta's housing minister, Are

6:57

you feeling, sir? That's

6:58

fine. Thank you. Can you share a few thoughts with

7:00

us? I'd prefer not to. It

7:04

wasn't until eighteen years later

7:07

that I was able to talk to him about

7:09

what had happened that night.

7:12

So I remember taking him down

7:14

to my office in the basement, and

7:17

I had a tape recorder ready,

7:19

and I said, okay. Tell me

7:21

about this.

7:23

Okay. I wanted to ask you

7:25

about what you

7:27

remember

7:29

from that night. What

7:32

happened? He

7:35

said to me, you should look up

7:37

Eric Vogel. You

7:39

should look him up.

7:41

You should talk to the

7:43

pirate.

7:45

Yeah. I'm gonna

7:47

try and track him down. Just cut

7:49

for him. I

7:52

think he could feel that Eric was

7:55

tortured by this Immediately,

7:58

I started looking for him. So

8:00

I started looking for vogles in the

8:03

phone book and calling these numbers.

8:05

And as I call, I'd say, I'm

8:07

the daughter of Larry Sheepen, this

8:09

crash survivor, and I'm looking for the pilot.

8:11

And people would say, yeah, no. Wrong

8:14

number. Wrong number. Wrong and

8:16

then I called this vocal. And

8:20

I did my spiel

8:22

about how I was the daughter of one

8:25

of the plane crash survivors and I was looking

8:27

for the pilot. It

8:29

had been a woman who answered the phone.

8:33

And there was this long silence,

8:37

and I could feel in that silence. That

8:41

she did not want

8:44

this question,

8:46

this phone call coming. I I knew

8:48

before she'd even responded. That

8:51

I had reached the right number.

8:54

And it was Eric's

8:56

wife and she said, he's

8:58

on the road, but

9:00

I could take your number. And

9:03

I gave her my number

9:04

thinking, this isn't gonna go any further. She

9:06

does not want this past dredged

9:08

up.

9:11

It was evening when

9:14

my phone rang. And I answered

9:16

the phone. And this voice

9:18

said, it's Eric Vogel.

9:21

I remember just feeling

9:24

this chill. He

9:26

made it very clear to me that if you

9:28

weren't Larry Shaven's daughter, I

9:30

would not be sharing this story with you.

9:33

And he just began to talk

9:35

to me about this. And I realized at

9:37

that point the deaths of

9:39

six people were on his conscience every

9:42

day Like

9:45

my dad, he had bottled this all up.

9:48

I knew that

9:51

he had a story that he had buried,

9:53

and he needed to unburdened himself.

9:58

I'm doing this as a favorite at Carol not to

10:01

not to tell a really cool story because it's not,

10:03

but for

10:05

me anyway, but it's just III

10:08

figure I owe Carol and I definitely owe her father.

10:09

So

10:12

I started flying right

10:14

out of high school, and I had

10:16

no real direction, didn't know what I wanted to do. And, of

10:18

course, my dad being an airline pilot pushing

10:20

me in that direction. And he got me enrolled

10:22

in an aviation program, and

10:25

it was that first summer that I was hooked

10:27

and loved it. Jumped into

10:28

it. He was desperately trying to

10:31

earn enough hours. This is the way you

10:33

move up in the airlines because they have to get a

10:35

certain number of hours before they can even apply

10:37

to the major

10:38

airlines. That was my goal. That was my

10:40

incentive to do what I was told to not get

10:42

fired, and

10:44

I tried too hard. Wapiti airline

10:47

started this kind of milk run

10:50

that would go from Edmonton to high

10:53

prairie, which is where we lived, and onto

10:55

other small communities in the north.

10:57

And so rather than my dad having

10:59

to five, the four hours home, particularly

11:02

in winter, he would

11:04

take this flight. There

11:07

were these scattered and remote

11:09

communities, some of them accessible

11:12

only by air, and

11:15

these kinds of commuter airlines grew

11:17

up with that tradition of we're

11:19

gonna push the weather and we're gonna

11:21

fight to get in even when

11:23

the weather might indicate that they shouldn't

11:26

be flying?

11:29

On this particular night. It

11:32

was a snowy,

11:35

overcast, really

11:38

moist Vancouver kind of weather.

11:41

The night of the crash, a

11:43

lot of other major airlines had

11:46

grounded their flights, but for

11:48

Wapiti, they decided to

11:51

go, to take this

11:52

flight. I

11:54

made a bit of an announcement in the terminal saying,

11:57

hey, weather's really bad. There's a good chance we're not gonna

11:59

get into high Prairie, very small town.

12:01

I had three passengers going there, and I hope they didn't

12:03

wanna go but they did. So that

12:05

didn't give me a lot of options to cancel

12:07

the flight. What was expected was to break

12:09

the rules was to get in no matter what you fly overloaded,

12:12

you fly minimum to everything. And

12:15

the morning pilot just said, be careful.

12:17

You know, we had a hard time taking off that morning because

12:19

of the snow, and so that was my a big concern,

12:21

and I knew the weather

12:24

was bad. And I thought, okay, maybe it'll get

12:26

better, but it turned out it got worse.

12:30

You're supposed to have a copilot in certain

12:32

situations with weather being bad.

12:34

But when we got to Edmonton, the

12:37

ticket girl there said, they've

12:39

bumped your co pilot because they wanna

12:41

put a paying passenger on your flight and

12:44

I still to the stake yet. Get

12:46

over how stupid that was.

12:51

I noticed that there was a guy

12:53

he wasn't in uniform, but he had

12:56

somebody handcuffed to him. So

12:59

we were going to have for a prisoner

13:01

and an RCMP. Of course, I was a

13:03

little buds because having a prisoner on

13:05

aircraft was big deal. I've

13:07

never seen a prisoner in handcuffs before, and and

13:09

he was a pretty scruffy looking dude. That

13:12

was a little intimidating knowing that he was on the plane.

13:14

That night there were nine

13:17

passengers and the pilot on

13:19

the plane. And

13:22

of those passengers, only

13:24

the pilot, my dad, the

13:27

criminal, and the cop

13:30

survived.

13:34

Paul Archabot was a drifter and

13:36

a Vagabond. And

13:40

Scott Deschamps was this Rookie

13:42

RCMP, this buy the book,

13:44

cop. The day that

13:46

Paul was picked up, he was

13:48

in Kamloops. And Scott

13:51

Deschamps being caught

13:54

on RCMP based in

13:56

Grand Prairie where the sentencing was had flown out

13:58

to bring him back. And so basically

14:00

from there, Paul

14:04

and Scott DeShaun were

14:06

handcuffed to one another Scott

14:09

Deschamps, the RCMP officer, came

14:11

up to the counter and plunked down these two wrists

14:13

that were chained together with handcuffs and said where do want

14:15

us to sit? There was a story in Vancouver

14:17

of a ten passenger airplane where the prisoner was in the

14:20

back and he broke free and was climbing over the seats trying

14:22

to get to the pilot. Well, in this plane, the novel,

14:24

there's actually an aisle down the middle. So

14:27

I said, I know exactly where you're

14:28

sitting. You're sitting at the back of the plane, and that's where

14:30

I put him. That was as far away as I could put him

14:32

from me in the cockpit. They

14:37

had been in airports all day long and

14:39

on standby in several

14:41

long waits. And

14:43

they got to talking. And

14:46

Scott could see that Paul wasn't dangerous

14:49

malicious guy they had started to

14:52

form this kind of rapport. They

14:54

got on. They were seated on the plane at their

14:56

final leg. And Paul

15:00

turned to Scott and said, hey,

15:03

can you just take these off me for the flight?

15:06

And I remember Deschamps.

15:09

And Harshavo parking, and

15:12

he said, take these handcuffs

15:15

off from the flight.

15:17

Although it's against RCMP

15:20

rules to do that. But

15:22

at that point, he really felt that this guy

15:24

was of no risk whatsoever. He

15:27

would be fine. Getting

15:31

out of there, I was running behind. I had to get going.

15:34

Everything started out okay. It was

15:36

just trying to decide what to do along the

15:37

way. We were one of the only airlines flying

15:40

in this terrible weather. The

15:42

wings were icing up and there were

15:44

huge sheets of ice building

15:46

on the forward edges of the

15:48

wing.

15:49

My de ice equipment didn't work and I'm flying in

15:51

a severe ice and situation, and

15:53

I'd actually discussed this with the passengers. I said,

15:55

hey, you're gonna hear banging. It's

15:57

a fuselage. It's just chunks of ice coming off

15:59

the prop. It's no big deal. Well, it is a big deal.

16:03

He's doing dead reckoning. I mean, this is

16:05

before GPS and all of these

16:08

tools that would help a pilot.

16:11

He was trying to do mathematical equations,

16:13

how far out was he, how far back,

16:15

and what he didn't realize eyes was

16:17

the thickness of this ice

16:20

had really slowed the progress

16:22

of the plane and he was twenty

16:25

miles further back than he thought he

16:27

was. I said, hey, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna

16:30

go down and try to land in this the airport. And

16:32

if I can't, I'm gonna come right back up, and I'm

16:34

gonna go back onto my flight plan

16:37

just as I started leveling at about nine

16:39

hundred feet to level at eight hundred, which

16:41

is the altitude that I had decided not going

16:43

below eight hundred feet above ground. Over

16:45

the airport, there was a hill

16:47

about eight hundred and fifty feet high. And not

16:49

a mountain, just just a hill, just a ride eyes

16:52

in the in the land, but unfortunately it was

16:54

eight hundred and fifty feet high. So I literally leveled

16:56

off in the trees.

16:58

I heard the banging and then thought it was

17:00

ice coming off propellers, and it turned

17:02

up to be the trees? It

17:05

was a a really

17:08

loud, a rendering

17:10

of metal

17:12

obviously, we're going through the trees, but

17:14

stuff was being torn off the aircraft. You're

17:17

talking seconds. So by the time I

17:20

bring registered, the banging,

17:22

dismissed it. We had impact. Once

17:35

I figured out that I was a alive.

17:37

There was no light because the batteries had been gone.

17:40

I didn't realize I was upside

17:41

down. The wings came off, lost

17:43

the nose cone right in front of us. The

17:46

fuselage was virtually upside down

17:49

because I know what I undoed

17:52

my seat belt. I felt, you know,

17:54

onto my head's knees. Turn

17:58

out to be the window, beside me,

18:01

had broken and I could feel the air.

18:03

And getting out of that airplane would have

18:05

been impossible for me in the

18:06

front. If the window hadn't broken, I would have had a

18:08

hard time breaking the window. There's no exit up front.

18:15

My glasses worked on. I

18:17

found my coat and put it on.

18:20

And there is a lot of groaning

18:23

alive but unconscious and

18:25

it is awful.

18:28

Larry followed me out and I didn't wasn't

18:30

till I was outside till I saw him when I was on my hands and

18:32

knees. And I remember, looking

18:35

to my left and seeing

18:38

Paul standing there, and

18:40

he had gone out a window. He was literally

18:43

uninjured. He had a a scratch on his forehead

18:45

that was that had bled a bit. Other

18:47

than that, he was untouched. We

18:51

kinda gather ourselves, but Paul was

18:53

right from the GECO adamant that

18:56

he had to get Scott they had developed a

18:58

pretty good

18:59

relationship, which is why he was uncuscular.

19:01

And as it happened, it was

19:03

that move that ended up saving

19:07

Scott's life because it had Paul,

19:10

archimbone, and handcuffed. There's

19:12

nothing he could have done to save his captor.

19:14

He went in there. And when

19:17

he was in, he was digging around for Scott. And

19:19

I remember Scott started to come around and

19:21

I can't imagine how stressful that was

19:23

for Scott to wake

19:24

up, not know where you are, and

19:26

know where you're trapped.

19:28

The shop we're saying I

19:31

can't breathe. I can't breathe.

19:34

And he was upside down? He

19:35

seemed to be jammed into the snow or

19:37

somehow.

19:39

And Paul was able to to dig him out

19:41

and bring Scott out.

19:45

We trapped through the snow because the snow

19:47

was good turn and a half feet deep. Yeah.

19:51

And we trapped through the snow, maybe,

19:53

I don't know, a couple

19:56

hundred feet from the airplane crash.

19:59

Sort of to make a path -- Yeah. --

20:01

and craft out a little space.

20:06

Somehow this fire appeared. Paul

20:08

got a fire going in the deep snow.

20:10

Everything's wet. And then we then

20:13

end up around the fire and and that

20:15

fire saved us for sure.

20:18

There's a lot of stuff

20:20

in the plain papers and stuff

20:22

that we burned. And

20:23

yeah. So we burned whatever

20:26

we could. And then there was

20:28

scraps of of of

20:31

wood lying around, but it was wet because it was

20:33

in the snow. So we would try and

20:35

pull, bark off trees from a

20:37

pie.

20:41

That night, there were nine

20:43

passengers. These were all local

20:46

people who either worked in the city or

20:48

had been in the city and were desperate

20:50

to get home that

20:51

night. And six of those people

20:54

did not ever leave that hillside.

20:57

Most of the seats broke loose except for Paul's.

20:59

His was actually anchored because it's bolted

21:01

in. Everybody else is is just clipped

21:02

in. And if we'd all had seats like that,

21:04

who knows what would have happened? But that was where the

21:06

fatalities came from, the seats all broke loose

21:08

because they're designed to come up quickly because we also

21:10

did Medevacs.

21:22

Stay tuned. Our four survivors

21:24

are bracing for a long cold night

21:27

and remote Canadian wilderness will

21:29

return. Snap judgment.

21:49

Welcome back to Snap Judgment. You're listening

21:51

to the into the abyss episode. And

21:53

when last we left, four men had

21:56

just survived the crash, of Wapiti

21:58

Airlines flight 402.

22:00

There's Eric Vogel, the twenty four year old pilot

22:03

who's flying the plane, politician

22:05

Larry Shabin, Ricky Cobb,

22:07

Scott DeChamp, and Paul

22:09

Archambo, who's being escorted to court

22:12

for sentencing as together they

22:14

shiver by the fire in the middle

22:16

of the blizzard. They could only wonder

22:19

if help us on the way. Step touch

22:21

me.

22:24

I had thought

22:27

that I can't tell these guys I'm the pilot because they're

22:29

they're gonna get pretty upset with me.

22:31

The prisoner III

22:33

never trusted. I said, okay, this could go sideways.

22:36

Scott was in mobile. He was laying

22:38

on the ground. He had torn all his intercostal

22:41

muscles, and he he couldn't move. So he basically

22:43

laid in the in the snow beside the fire and

22:45

okay. He's not gonna protect me. And he

22:47

kept asking for his briefcase. He wanted his gun,

22:49

and and was concerned why he wanted his

22:50

gun, but he was thinking fears

22:53

and wolves and things and and he won't have

22:55

his gun, but it was long gone.

22:59

Being on my hands and knees and

23:01

the snow trying

23:03

to get my head around what I had just done, and

23:05

I knew was me. And, of course, I knew I had done it.

23:07

I was ready to give up right there. And

23:10

this was a pretty helpless feeling. The

23:12

pilot's responsible. It's still my flight,

23:14

my passengers. I'm supposed to go now and

23:16

and, you know, like the captain of the ship, and

23:19

I had no skills. I was supposed to gather

23:21

everybody up and get them to the fire

23:23

and start a fire and signal for help

23:26

and just had nothing. And

23:29

it was probably the the other voices

23:31

and and Larry being beside me and and

23:33

that kept me

23:34

going. He was so ashamed of and

23:36

tortured by what he'd done, that

23:38

this was his fault and the

23:40

deaths of these people were on his conscience. I mean,

23:42

remember he was twenty four, he was just a kid.

23:45

Eric didn't tell them until quite

23:47

bit later when they were sitting around the fire

23:51

that he was a pilot.

23:56

I told them that I'm the pilot and, of course,

23:58

they said what happened and I tried to tell them the whole

24:00

story right from the beginning.

24:03

One of the big things with Wapiti Airline

24:05

is it had been cited for all

24:07

sorts of infractions. There

24:09

had been a line of pilots who'd gone

24:11

to the transportation Canada saying,

24:14

this is an unsafe airline

24:17

pushing the weather, making

24:19

pilots fly when they were exhausted,

24:23

making them drop down below the acceptable

24:25

ceilings, maintenance

24:27

issues, where the planes weren't properly maintained

24:30

and there were mechanical issues. So this

24:32

airline was known. It was known

24:35

in the industry to be one of these

24:37

bad operators.

24:40

Apparently, we were under a super secret probation.

24:42

They were putting people on the flights to monitor

24:44

it. And I thought, well, how can this company keep operating.

24:47

We had had been led to believe that

24:49

they're they had an ace in the hole. They had two people

24:51

that were supporting the company. And

24:53

whenever they got in trouble, these people would write a letter

24:56

and make a phone call and say, hey, don't shut

24:58

these guys down. So they acted a bit

25:00

invincible that they could do what they wanted. They were protected

25:02

and and it just deflated us because we

25:04

now we can't even go to transport

25:07

Canada for help. We were basically we're

25:09

we're we're on our own and you you

25:11

are on your own, but they knew when

25:13

I got to the part about, you know,

25:16

how this company was able to operate this

25:18

way and I said there's people out

25:20

there that were supporting this company and Larry

25:22

admitted right away. He goes, this

25:25

is pretty crazy that I'm onboard this flight because

25:27

I'm one of those people and the other

25:29

ones in the aircraft.

25:33

Bogle was was really good. And he was

25:35

really hurting

25:39

in terms of mentally

25:41

hurting. Because he just

25:44

tell I mean, he was the guy who's the pilot,

25:47

plane like that. And

25:51

and addition to that, he was hurt physically.

25:55

And but he

25:57

worked at

26:00

keeping the fire going and helping

26:02

until he could move anymore.

26:06

Eric was relentless in his efforts

26:08

to try and make things right. He

26:10

was trying to do everything within his power.

26:12

Even though he had a punctured lung, he

26:14

was coughing up blood, his hands

26:16

were mangled. They were unusable

26:19

because the window of the cockpit had

26:21

come at him and just torn up his

26:23

hands. I felt weak and it was probably

26:25

the blood loss. If I kept trying to walk around,

26:28

I probably would have collapsed, but I

26:30

just kinda gave up and sat down. I

26:33

remember being really cold, I was

26:35

in a a light cotton shirt and

26:37

I'd had a parka that I had from the Arctic

26:39

days and then I'd given that to Scott because he's

26:42

laying in the

26:42

snow. It was really

26:45

trying to keep Desjardins comfortable.

26:47

And then after that,

26:49

Joshua and I kept or

26:52

hauling whatever we declined to keep

26:54

the fire going. Keeping

26:56

the fire going was pretty tough and

26:59

we were running out of things to burn and there

27:02

was two aircraft seats that were outside, so

27:05

the plane opened up in the front and

27:09

record you had been strewed. It was quite a debris

27:11

trail, and we found a

27:13

chair. And I said, throw that

27:15

chair in the fire. And I'm Chris Scott

27:17

saying, that's not gonna burn. That's an aircraft

27:19

seat. And I said, yeah. Actually, this. We

27:22

placed the seat over top of the small fire,

27:24

and it never was a big fire we put the seat

27:26

in, and this seat flashed up.

27:29

And it just was like a Roman candle and

27:32

it was crazy. And they wanted to burn

27:34

the other one. I said, hang on. This is like a flare.

27:36

We've got nothing to signal with. Keep the

27:38

other seat. We put it aside and

27:40

we thought when we hear them or see them, we're gonna

27:43

put the seat in and that'll be our our signal fire.

27:46

And we held out for quite while until

27:48

we were super cold and freezing again, and

27:50

we thought screw

27:50

it. We're gonna we're gonna burn the other seats. So we end

27:52

up burning both seats. My

27:56

dad had given Paul Archembo

27:59

his cigarettes that night to

28:02

hang on to and they'd

28:04

blitz cigarettes together and wandered into

28:06

the forest.

28:07

Archibald had

28:11

a lot of nervous energy. I'd

28:14

hurt my hands from the whatever

28:16

damage because the spot in my hands

28:18

were all beat up. And

28:21

my glasses were gone. So I had

28:23

trouble handling my cigarettes. Right?

28:27

So I said, I

28:29

said, you carry them. And the the little burger

28:31

was a chainspoker, so they were gone.

28:34

I mean, it was, I think, almost full

28:36

pack, and they were gone. I broke two in the morning.

28:39

It was funny. Larry,

28:41

I did not I didn't know he wore glasses, so he

28:43

lost his glasses, and he wouldn't sit down. He was

28:46

very fidgety, and and it turned out he had broken tailbone.

28:48

It wasn't comfortable to sit down, but he he insisted

28:50

not standing the whole night. And

28:53

Paul was all over the place and

28:56

running around and and Scott was mobile.

28:58

He he couldn't get up. He just he

29:01

he kinda kinda just laid there by the fire

29:03

and and eventually I did too. I

29:06

couldn't get up anymore, and I apologize, I couldn't

29:08

get more wood. So we really relied on

29:10

Paul and Larry would follow him. And I don't

29:12

know how Larry did it all night. And

29:14

Scott and I basically laid by the fire. We

29:17

had decided that if we had fallen asleep,

29:20

we might not wake up because of hyper I

29:22

mean, so we just kept each other

29:23

awake. He said, you know, you can't fall asleep you can't fall asleep.

29:27

That's funny. You know, in case I got your

29:29

old complete strangers, And

29:32

then as the evening

29:36

wore on, there's

29:38

a little more chatter.

29:41

And I think part of the

29:42

shock, the realization

29:44

of what had happened, and that sort of I

29:47

don't think I would have survived evolved by myself.

29:50

You know, forget survivor's guilt. Just

29:53

being there on your own would have been pretty horrendous.

29:55

And without a fire, I wouldn't have survived. So,

29:58

yeah, having having each other to talk

30:00

to, and we all we all told personal

30:03

stories and and and some jokes we're

30:06

sitting there. And

30:08

I said, if you had one

30:10

wish that you could

30:13

have fulfilled right now, what

30:15

would you wish for? And

30:17

Deshaun talked about his relation

30:20

trip with his wife where they hadn't

30:22

been getting along and she wanted to have

30:25

a child. He didn't wanna have a child,

30:27

but And he said,

30:29

I tell my

30:31

wife I'm sorry. And

30:33

let's have

30:35

a child make this thing work. And

30:41

I should go. I said if

30:42

you, you know, if you had one wish. I'd

30:45

like to join. That's it.

30:48

That's really what? That's the joint.

30:50

On

30:51

Tuesday. I said I wanted to walk back.

30:54

That's that one. Yeah. Cool. That's what

30:56

I wanted. I

30:57

mean, it was really the only thing I wanted, right

30:59

there was a lot back.

31:00

You were really cold, death?

31:02

Yeah. It was cold, dirty, crunchy.

31:07

My mom made these famous chocolate

31:10

chip cookies, big cakes. So

31:12

when I left that morning from my flight,

31:14

not knowing when I would eat again, I

31:17

took four of these cookies. I don't know why I took

31:19

four. They're quite big, but I took four and

31:21

I wrapped them up and I put them in my flight bag and

31:23

the flight bag is jammed between our our passenger

31:26

seats in the front. And I told

31:28

Paul, I said Paul, when you're in the plane, you

31:30

need to go into my flight bag and

31:32

there's four cookies in there and bring

31:34

out whatever you find. So he came back

31:37

The bag couldn't be removed, but he came back and he

31:39

found the cookies full. We all got a cookie,

31:41

which was pretty amazing. And

31:43

he he gave me my logbook and I looked

31:45

at this as well. I'm never gonna need this again.

31:47

So I was tearing out the pages and

31:50

feeding them into the fire. And I can't remember

31:52

who it was. Well, you're gonna need that. And I think,

31:54

you know what? I'm never gonna need this

31:56

again. This is I'm done. No one's ever

31:58

gonna hire me after this, so we we burned the

32:00

logbook.

32:05

And those moments of hopelessness, there

32:09

were snippets of conversation where they

32:12

would talk about how demoralized they

32:14

were and this sense

32:17

that It's not gonna happen.

32:19

We're not gonna get out of here alive. We

32:22

crashed a little after eight o'clock at night, probably

32:24

think it was twenty after rate. So

32:26

it was most likely in the middle night probably

32:29

after midnight that they were dropping these

32:31

flares and they were dropping the flares for the ground

32:33

crews aim towards these

32:35

flares. And the first one they dropped

32:37

was right on our heads. So

32:39

you can

32:39

imagine how excited we were to see that,

32:41

and I thought There you go. They dropped the magnesium

32:43

floor right over us. That was pretty good signal. I said,

32:45

they found us. And and everybody's pretty

32:47

excited and I'm and I'm listening. The plane

32:50

flew away. And then it dropped another one

32:52

miles away. And then it dropped

32:54

a third one. So when I saw the third

32:56

flare drop, I said, guys, we got

32:58

a problem. And they said, what?

33:00

I said, they don't know where we are. And he goes, why'd

33:02

you say that? And I said, well, look, why would they drop flares

33:05

way over there and way over there?

33:07

If they think we're here. And

33:09

it got real quiet again, and and I said, they're

33:11

just dropping flares. They they don't know where

33:13

we are. But it's good that they're dropping

33:16

them near us. That's helpful.

33:18

But I said, I they're just dropping them in the area,

33:20

so I said again until this thing

33:22

circles. So we went

33:24

back to basically ignoring the plane it

33:26

would fly over and we wouldn't even look up anymore.

33:40

After the break, with all

33:42

hope fading after darkness falls,

33:44

gamma survivors keep each other alive

33:47

until the morning. Stay

33:49

tuned.

34:11

Welcome back to snap judgment. Into

34:14

the abyss episode, my name

34:16

was them Washington. And before we

34:18

left, search and rescue efforts to

34:20

locate the crash site have been going

34:22

on throughout the night. But

34:24

neither wreckage nor survivors have

34:26

been spotted through the harsh snowstorm. Snap

34:30

judgment.

34:33

So the next day, the sun came up and

34:35

I said, guys, we're in trouble.

34:38

We can't see. And if we can't see up,

34:40

they can't see us. So there was the overcast

34:42

and low fog. So I said

34:44

it's gonna be a while yet. And we could

34:46

see the plane which was pretty tough to look at. It was

34:48

about fifty feet away from us.

34:51

And if you can imagine a a wider craft

34:54

in the snow and a bunch of

34:56

black objects around a fire that smoking, not

34:58

even a flame, it's just smoldering. There

35:00

was nothing for them to see. They're looking for the

35:02

lane, they're not looking for us. They

35:05

flew over and they were gone because they're

35:07

they're they're going real fast. And

35:09

I said, no, don't get excited. You know, that's

35:11

that's cool. These guys are these guys are sure trying.

35:14

They're looking. And we could see all these

35:16

people looking out the back of the door and the

35:18

plane disappeared.

35:20

There's a point where the plane was

35:23

there and then gone. You said

35:25

it it it was really demoralizing.

35:27

Yeah. That's right. Because you were waving

35:29

and waved whatever we could. Really

35:31

seemed to come in with the roll over the

35:33

the crease.

35:35

So they left. And I thought, okay, they're

35:37

they're all looking somewhere else. And it got quiet

35:39

again. And then I heard the Twin Otter

35:41

come. And he flew over

35:44

and went right by. And I said, okay. Cool.

35:46

Twin Otter's here. You can go slower. And

35:49

in that break in the sunshine, and it's the only

35:51

break we'd ever seen, and it was right over top of

35:54

us, maybe from the the smoke

35:56

from the fire. I don't know. It just opened

35:58

up and they looked down and they saw us

36:00

all their the pilot

36:02

put it into a a tight tight three

36:05

six in circled, basically

36:07

stood on its way right

36:09

on top of us. And then

36:12

I said, okay, they found us. I

36:14

could see him in the window. And

36:18

that was a pretty good feeling. And and

36:20

I said, okay. We might get out of this.

36:25

Around midmorning,

36:28

ten thirty, the plane

36:30

had been spotted And

36:32

in a break in the clouds, the search and

36:34

rescuers had seen that

36:37

there were three people around

36:40

the fire.

36:45

You could hear the big blades of this shit up

36:47

coming in, and it

36:49

flew over

36:53

and hovered off not

36:56

over top of a swatch link because it's pretty chilly

36:58

into those blades and

37:00

they started coming down the rope. And

37:03

then it flew out of the way and the and

37:06

the crew came by the plane.

37:08

I could see them looking at the plane as

37:10

they walked by and and they could see

37:12

us and they walked up. But

37:15

the first thing he said was, I

37:17

guess, the pilot's dead. And,

37:20

of course, the guys thought that was funny.

37:23

And they said, no. He's sitting right there and the and the

37:25

look on his

37:25

face. But I said, no. No. I'm right

37:27

here. Okay. And

37:28

then how did they get you off out of the bush? They

37:31

winched us up to speak. It's

37:34

not helicopter, hovered

37:36

over

37:36

top. No easiest could be. They

37:40

started doing their triage, and I I kept

37:42

saying, I'm not going first to take everybody else.

37:44

And they scooped up Larry

37:46

and and Paul because they're

37:49

ambulatory, they were standing. It was easy to scoop

37:51

them. And I just sat there and

37:53

remember the guy gave me an IV

37:55

bag to to put inside my jacket.

37:57

I'm Pallott found us some clothes and

38:00

had someone's jacket on him. I was looking

38:02

down at Scott while they're packaging them up and getting them

38:04

ready to hoist them up. And

38:06

I was kinda sitting up. And

38:09

then I remember thinking that I was doing pretty good.

38:11

And one of the reasons I didn't bleed to death,

38:13

the doctor told me it was because of cold, your

38:15

body goes into shock, and it shuts down

38:17

your extremities. And I had lacerations,

38:20

my wristwatch, slid open my wrist, and

38:22

nothing was coming out of it. It was just a big gaping hole

38:24

that I could put my and I know blood was coming out.

38:27

So that made sense. I didn't bleed to

38:29

death because of the cold, so he said the cold actually

38:31

helped you guys.

38:34

I felt really warm and it was weird

38:36

feeling. I just felt warm all over and I thought, okay,

38:38

I'm being rescued. This is This is good. The

38:40

dog came over looked at my pupils and

38:43

said, this one goes next.

38:46

They scoop me out of there.

38:52

Six people, including Alberta NDP

38:54

leader, Grant Nock, he died when the Wapiti

38:57

Airlines flight smashed into a hill.

38:59

Four people, including pilot Eric

39:01

Vogel, and Provincial Housing Minister, Larry

39:03

shaven survived the crash. For

39:05

me, it was like,

39:07

how am I gonna face the world? How am I gonna face

39:09

everything knowing what I done. Did I wanna survive?

39:12

It was hard to feel that good about

39:14

being alive and that started

39:16

right away.

39:22

Did you ever think you weren't gonna make it, dad?

39:24

No. Never? No.

39:28

You said once the you

39:30

kinda marked that date every year and you look at

39:32

what you've done with the Yeah.

39:34

And and that's what I was saying this morning.

39:37

IIII

39:39

think that I haven't done

39:41

those nineteen years justice somehow

39:45

in terms of using the time.

39:50

Larry was was amazing. Such

39:52

a gentleman and really helped me through

39:54

the whole thing. He would reach out to us started

39:56

with phone calls and then later became emails

39:58

and and messages. But it was an annual

40:00

thing on on October nineteenth. I

40:03

used to take the day off and just reflect and

40:05

and just do nothing. But as the years

40:07

went on, I just kinda went okay today today

40:09

and kinda just thought about

40:11

it all

40:11

day. I was realistic. I thought, well,

40:13

my airline career is done. I know

40:15

there's lots of pilots out there that have that have had accidents,

40:17

but this was pretty high profile. But in the

40:19

meantime, I'd gone back to being a volunteer firefighter

40:22

and I really enjoyed it and I thought this is a great

40:24

career and I got on hire and fire department.

40:26

It's a very respectable job. It's a good

40:28

calling and it it gave me back my self respect

40:31

and I embraced it.

40:35

The survivors, the three

40:37

who were still alive toward the end

40:39

of my dad's life, had been a touch.

40:41

But there was a point when it was coming

40:43

up to the twenty year of the reunion. And

40:46

I think my dad was getting

40:48

older. He was sixty nine. Probably

40:51

sense that life was passing, and he

40:53

basically said, we need to meet.

40:55

We need to see each other altogether

40:58

face to face. And he arranged

41:00

for the three survivors to

41:02

meet. We went for a little

41:04

a meal at nearby hotel, and

41:06

we just didn't stop talking the whole time. We

41:08

joked about doing it, you know, in the reunion in

41:10

in another twenty years, but I I think

41:12

Larry knew he wasn't well at the time.

41:15

And it's pretty amazing that they've kept me in their

41:17

life. Considering that what

41:19

I had done. So that always that

41:21

always amaze me that I was forgiven

41:23

right from the that first night.

41:28

In two thousand and eight, when

41:30

my dad was dying of cancer, Eric

41:34

Vogel reached out to me and,

41:37

you know, it was a month short of the anniversary of

41:39

the

41:39

crash, so they'd obviously been in

41:41

touch. And I

41:43

received an email from Era

41:46

I had a lot of things I wanted to say to him.

41:48

I was twenty four. He

41:50

was pretty worldly. He was a a politician. He

41:52

he knew what was going on and and just the way he

41:54

treated me right from the get go, and I did not

41:56

expect

41:57

that. I felt I owed him everything because of

41:59

the way he treated me right from that first

42:01

moment. He said, could you please just

42:03

read this to your dad. I know he's in his last

42:05

days, and I

42:08

never got a chance. I didn't get

42:10

back to Edmonton from Vancouver

42:12

before my dad died, but I was able

42:14

to read Eric's email

42:19

at my dad's service. And

42:22

in it, he wrote to

42:25

Larry, I'm writing

42:27

this with a heavy heart from my new

42:29

desk job. The

42:31

only reason that I looked forward to October

42:34

nineteenth was because I would

42:36

get a hope from you reminding

42:38

us that we were lucky to be alive

42:41

and how life was going.

42:44

It always made me smile You've

42:46

been a hero in my new life, Larry.

42:49

And I've tried to make you proud with

42:52

our new lease on this life. I

42:54

was hoping to give you a new tie

42:57

pin to go with the bugle that I

42:59

gave you. This one is my

43:01

new captain's bugle. That

43:03

came with my promotion. I

43:05

know it's just a job, but this

43:08

job helped me redeem myself

43:10

to you and many others I

43:13

will miss you, my friend. And

43:15

now I have to explain

43:18

to my chief across the room

43:20

Why a six foot three fire

43:22

captain is crying at his

43:25

desk? A

43:39

huge thank you to air