Whistler – Lifelong Squamish resident Jerry Burns is being remembered for his love of family life and his ability to make people laugh after dying in plane crash, along with six others, while travelling to remote Toba Inlet to work on a Kiewit project Sunday (Nov. 16).
The Toba Montrose is a $660-million run-of-river hydroelectric project being built in partnership with GE Energy Financial Services. One man survived the crash.
Burns lived in the Garibaldi Highlands with his wife Carrie, five-year-old daughter Taylor and 12-year-old stepdaughter Jessica. He loved spending time with his wife and daughters so much that he made the now heart-wrenching decision to postpone his flight to his first stint at the work camp for one more day to be with his family.
“He didn’t like being away at camp,” said his friend of 30 years, Ivan Jensen. “He’d done that in his younger years, being at logging camps.”
“Jerry loved to spend time with his family,” stated Carrie in a letter to The Chief. “His relaxation time was to bring his family camping in the 42-foot trailer, often locally at Alice Lake.”
Burns had been working for Kiewit on the Sea to Sky Highway Improvement Project as an equipment operator in “every segment but Whistler,” said Jensen.
He decided to accept the offer to work at Toba Montrose after highway work began slowing down.
“He was going to go there for maybe a couple of stints and then he was going to work for the Gateway project and start the twinning of the Port Mann and all the expansion on Highway 1,” said Jensen.
Although not keen on the prospect of spending weeks at a work camp, Burns was a dedicated and conscientious worker, Carrie wrote.
“Jerry would always look forward to going to work, to being outdoors.”
Burns enjoyed playing outdoors too, and loved sledding, taking out his quad and boating.
He took his family responsibilities seriously, and so he had less time to socialize with friends as he did when he was younger, said Jensen. But when he did, there would always be laughter.
“We tried to get together every opportunity that we could. It was always a good time,” said Jensen. “He’ll be remembered mostly for cracking jokes, laughing, being funny.”
“He had quite a good laugh,” said Jensen’s wife, Wanda.
The company has temporarily suspended work at Toba Montrose and has brought in grief counsellors for the 300-person crew.
“This tragedy has struck us all at Kiewit very deeply,” Kiewit spokesperson Kent Grisham said during a press conference in Sechelt Monday (Nov. 17).
The Pacific Coastal Airlines Grumman Goose amphibian plane was carrying eight passengers when it left Vancouver International Airport at 10:17 a.m. Sunday heading to a Plutonic Power Corp. work camp to deliver workers and supplies. At 10:40 a.m., a Thormanby Island resident called 911 to report the crash, triggering a massive search and rescue operation. The pilot was killed along with six passengers: Kyle Adams, 29, of Edmonton, Waldemar Klemens, 24, of Burnaby, Matt Sawchenko, 26, of North Vancouver, and Ajay Cariappa, 34, of St. Albert, Alta. Thomas Wilson, 35, of Ft. Saskatchewan, Alta., survived, escaping with no broken bones of internal injuries.
