By Ben Forrest | November 29, 2016 Estimated reading time 4 minutes, 49 seconds.
Canada is mourning the loss of Capt. Thomas McQueen, a fighter pilot who died when a single-seat CF-188 Hornet crashed during a Nov. 28 training mission.
McQueen, originally from Hamilton, Ont., was flying an aircraft from 401 Squadron, 4 Wing Cold Lake, Alta., on an air-to-ground training mission when the crash took place shortly after 11 a.m. Mountain Standard Time.
“We are deeply saddened by this terrible accident,” said Col Paul Doyle, commander of 4 Wing and Canadian Forces Base Cold Lake, in a press conference on Nov. 29.
McQueen is being remembered as a leader among his peers and a consummate professional who will be forever missed.
“We have lost a member of our RCAF family, and it hurts,” said RCAF commander LGen Michael Hood in a statement.
“We will support the family of Capt McQueen, and his squadron, to the fullest. And while the investigation determines the cause of this incident, I commend our men and women who through their grief will continue to serve Canada to their fullest. Thomas, we will miss you.”
McQueen was flying in a two-ship formation during the training exercise inside the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range, near the Saskatchewan border, when the crash took place.
The cause of the crash has yet to be determined.
The Improvement District 349, including the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range, was under a fog advisory on Monday morning. There is no word if fog was a factor in the crash.
Hood was appearing before a Senate committee when news of the crash broke on Nov. 28, CTV reported. At 2 p.m. Eastern time that day, Hood was scheduled to discuss issues related to the federal government’s Defence Policy Review, according to iPolitics.
Last week, the government announced its Defence Policy Review would inform an open competition to replace Canada’s aging fleet of CF-188 Hornets.
At the time, the government announced plans to explore acquiring 18 Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornets as an interim measure to fill a fighter jet “capability gap.”
Hood also answered questions on Nov. 28 about whether a policy change in fact created the capability gap that the government is now trying to fix with an interim fleet.
“The government has made a policy whereby I need to be able to service both our NORAD commitment and our NATO commitment concurrently,” responded Hood. “That demands a certain number of aircraft that our present CF-18 fleet is unable to meet on its day to day serviceability rates which is pretty common for a fighter fleet. That is as a result of the policy change.”
Hood said he was not privy to the decisions behind the policy change.
“Suffice it to say that there’s a policy change and I’m the implementer of that policy to have the right number of aircraft available,” he said.
Hood was also asked if he is confident the existing CF-188s will be able to fly past 2025, following an announcement last week that Canada must continue fly the legacy CF-188s throughout the 2020s.
“As you know we now believe that yes, they can fly to 2025 and beyond to enable the transition to a final fleet,” he said.
“There is also the requirement to keep that airplane current in its combat capabilities and there’s some project money to address that, but all in good time. Suffice to say that we will be able to keep all the aircraft flying to 2025 and longer.”
VERY SAD …CONDOLENCES to His FAMILY and the RCAF Family.