Ernie Whitehead (l), Len Dykhuizen (Image Credit: RCMP Handout)

By James Peters/CFJC Today

Remains Identified

RCMP ID remains found in Wells Grey Park as 1987 crash victims

Sep 30, 2019 | 10:56 AM

CLEARWATER, B.C. — RCMP and the B.C. Coroners Service have confirmed the identities of the human remains found at a historical plane crash site in Wells Gray Park last fall.

According to a news release, DNA analysis allowed investigators to identify the two victims at the crash site as Ernie Whitehead and Len Dykhuizen.

Whitehead and Dykhuizen took off from the Eagle Bay area in the Shuswap on June 20, 1987. The two were aboard a Piper Super Cub floatplane and were en route to McDougall Lake in Wells Grey Park.

They weren’t seen for more than 30 years, until a crash site was found near McDougall Lake on September 18, 2018.

Joint Rescue Coordination Centre (JRCC) searchers had been looking for a more recent missing plane when they spotted the Wells Grey crash site.

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The plane had crashed in steep, rugged, remote terrain.

“RCMP are pleased that we have now been able to provide their family with answers to some long-standing questions,” stated Southeast District RCMP Media Relations Officer Cpl. Jesse O’Donaghey in the news release. “This discovery ends over three decades of uncertainty.”

A tracker climbs a steep incline to the crash site (Image Credit: RCMP Handout)