The president of the Victoria Flying Club says he’s never heard of an incident like the one Tuesday when someone took control of one of the club’s planes on a Victoria airport runway, then flew it in circles above Vancouver International Airport, shutting down flight arrivals for about 40 minutes.
Speaking to reporters at a news conference Wednesday at YYJ, Colin Williamson said the RCMP has asked him to withhold most details of the incident while an investigation is underway.
Police have said they arrested the pilot and sole occupant of a Cessna that was allegedly hijacked from Victoria and flown to Vancouver International Airport on Tuesday afternoon.
Williamson wouldn’t answer questions about whether anyone was injured or threatened on Tuesday, or if there was an instructor in the plane at any point during the incident.
Police did not release any additional details on Wednesday before press time.
Williamson confirmed the suspect was not a member of the club, adding that he had never seen the man prior to Tuesday, and that an instructor involved in the incident was doing “OK.”
He said the flight school’s main concern right now is making sure its staff have all the support they need following the “unauthorized takeoff” of one of the school’s Cessna 172 aircraft.
Williamson, who was landing his own flight at YYJ around the time of the incident, said he noticed a Cessna that was taking longer than expected to take off.
But that was not something out of the ordinary, he said. “I just assumed it was a student pilot.”
But when he saw security guards and RCMP reacting to the situation, he quickly realized that it was not an ordinary day.
Social-media videos show multiple police vehicles on the Vancouver runway behind the single-engine plane, and several officers advancing on the aircraft.
A posted photo shows a man with a beard dressed in a grey T-shirt and dark pants with his hands up, as three police officers appear to point weapons at him.
Vancouver International Airport said the incident occurred around 1:30 p.m. and shut down arrivals for 39 minutes, but operations later returned to normal.
Dean Sexton was driving on a bridge across the Fraser River when he saw a light aircraft “making a crazy last-minute manoeuvre super low.”
“I work in the airport area and never saw anything like it in my life,” said Sexton.
He turned on Live Air Traffic Control Communications to listen in and heard air traffic controllers closing the airspace because of a “pilot protest.”
Unconfirmed reports on social media have suggested the protest was related to climate change.
Sexton went to an observation spot near the north runway, where he saw police and customs officials.
“I saw that the aircraft was based out of Victoria and quickly heard from other plane spotters [that] it was a stolen aircraft out of Victoria airport,” he said.
In an air-traffic recording from YVR, a controller in the tower said around 1:26 p.m. that a Cessna 172 had been hijacked.
It warned other aircraft to “continue looking out the window” for the small plane in case anything starts heading towards you.”
“We really don’t know what will happen, but this aircraft is just circling overhead,” the controller says a few minutes later. “And we don’t know, of course, their intention.”
Online flight-path data for the light aircraft shows it took off from Victoria’s airport and landed in Vancouver at 1:43 p.m., after circling around YVR airspace several times.
Vancouver International Airport said nine inbound aircraft were diverted to other airports during the incident.
Lindsay Gaunt, vice-president of revenue strategy and business development at Victoria Airport Authority, said three of those diverted flights landed at Victoria International Airport.
Airport operations in Victoria were affected for about an hour due to Tuesday’s incident, she said.
There was a full ground stoppage for 20 minutes for planes looking to take off, but landing flights were unaffected, she said.
Williamson said it’s still too early to say whether any procedures at the flight school will change as a result of Tuesday’s incident, adding that access to planes and the airport runway is already closely monitored.
The club’s Cessna that was flown to Vancouver was scheduled for routine flights that day, he said.
The plane, which remains in police custody, has apparently not been damaged, he said.
The club is working closely with authorities to review the aviation incident, he said.
Nav Canada and Transport Canada both say they are aware of the incident.
With files from Darron Kloster, Alanna Kelly and The Canadian Press
