Victim always ‘willing to give a hand’

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This article was published 31/12/2010 (5697 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WINNIPEG — The pilot who died in a crash northwest of Boissevain is being described as a devoted family man, farmer and businessman with a passion for flying.

Art Peters, 62, died when his single-engine 1968 Cessna 172K crashed, after 2 p.m. Wednesday afternoon, just five kilometres northwest of Boissevain as he was trying to reach Deloraine.

The farmer and owner of West-Gro Seeds Service Ltd., was a family man with a wife and three sons, and a pilot who advocated for safe air travel at the Brandon airport.

"Build it and they will come," from Hollywood movie "Field of Dreams," was a saying Peters loved to quote sealing off opinion pieces and letters to the editor he wrote to the Brandon Sun, lobbying for the "building" of an Instrument Landing System to enable safe air travel in the Westman region.

After Peters obtained more than 5,000 signatures, the ILS was installed and approved and is expected to go into service by March 2011.

In a Feb. 6, 2010, Brandon Sun letter to the editor, Peters wrote: "having seen the response to this petition for service in our wider community shows us that we can do these things, it just means we have to speak out and ask … If someone had told me five years ago that I would spearhead a petition about an ILS approach, I would have wondered who they were talking to."

Tragically, Peters will not see the initiative he spearheaded come to life in the new year.

"He was a very good farmer and business man, always thoughtful and willing to give a hand, at his age he wasn’t even slowing down, he was always trying to find a better way in ways of farming," said David Rourke, who knew Peters for 30 years.

He originally bought grain seeds from Peters and later joined him in serving on a board.

"To me he was quiet, he was never loud and boastful, very thoughtful, wanted to give his best thoughts," Rourke said.

Rourke also described Peters’ wife to be quite flexible with him as he invested much time into his business and farming.

Peters and his wife were deeply involved in the Boissevain Mennonite Community Church.

"We didn’t get together often, would wave at each other as we passed, going off into our own (farm)lands, so the opportunity is gone to talk with him again," Rourke added.

"We all feel awful about what happened," said Dave Wall, a good friend of Peters and the director of maintenance of Maple Leaf Aviation Limited in Brandon.

Wall declined further comment.

Peters’ family had requested the RCMP not release his name, but friends and peers have identified him.

"From our perspective this is not a criminal matter," said RCMP spokeswoman Sgt. Line Karpish, adding the Transportation Safety Board’s investigation "may take weeks."

Karpish said flurries, wind and fog have made it hard to search the crash.

An autopsy will likely be conducted this week.

 

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