Weather played a key role in a plane crash south of Wawa last spring.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada's released its report on the April 14th crash of Piper Comanche aircraft that killed two people - it states that investigators were unable to determine what weather information the pilot obtained before departing around 3:43 pm from the southern Ontario community of Delhi, heading for Marathon, as a stopover on the way to Alberta, though the flight did start in appropriate weather conditions, even if dense clouds could be seen west of the flight plan.
According to the TSB, the privately registered plane changed its heading slightly toward the west and was on track toward Marathon just before flying over Manitoulin Island, with automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast data collected after the incident showing it was heading toward Marathon just before 6 that night but also a higher frequency of heading changes and ADS-B information was lost five minutes later, when the plane was about 14 nautical miles - about 26 kilometres - south of the Wawa Municipal Airport, as weather conditions worsened.
The plane was later reported overdue, prompting a search hampered by poor weather conditions and reduced visibility, and the mission was called off April 24th, handed over to the OPP as a missing persons case - plane parts were discovered by a helicopter operator conducting a private search May 21st, in an open swampy area within a mountainous and densely wooded area about eleven kilometres northwest of the plane's last known position, with a subsequent search confirming the aircraft was destroyed and both pilot Brian Slingerland and his friend, John Fehr, were killed in the crash.