Flight instructor mourned after Pitt Lake float plane crash

The staff at Pitt Meadows’ Pacific Rim Aviation Academy are mourning their colleague, instructor James Stevens this week, after the 71-year-old was killed in a float plane crash Monday afternoon.

“James Stevens was a man among men and a gentle giant whose instructional capabilities, were beyond exception. He loved to fly,” flight school owner Chris Georgas said in a statement to the media Thursday.

Stevens was killed when the Cessna 172 he was flying in with a 55-year-old male student flipped in Pitt Lake Monday just after 4 p.m. The cabin was submerged under water. His student survived with only minor injuries and was treated and released from hospital Monday evening.

Bill Yearwood, the Transportation Safety Board’s regional manager for aviation accident investigations said the float plane had been doing touch and go – consecutive touch down and take off manoeuvers – in gusty wind conditions at the time of the crash.

Pacific Rim staff called Stevens “Arizona Jim,” Georgas recalled, for his yearly habit of heading south for the winter. He was admired as a “respected colleague, dedicated co-worker and … pilot instructor whose diligence, pre-flight planning, quiet and decisive cockpit management skills and general knowledge of his ‘water world’ environment could easily be described as being without equal.” Georgas explained.

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Now, his colleagues are left reeling from his tragic loss.

“It has taken these past few days for all of us to come to grips with the fact that he won’t be showing up at the Fraser River Float Ramp,” Georgas wrote. “What a smile our Jim has. Standing there in his Tilley hat, black jacket, life vest and lunch box and those ‘god awful’ rubber gum boots he always wore when one of his float plane students was about to solo in that shiny, bright Cessna 172 office he loved to fly.”

On the company website, Stevens is described as a veteran pilot. “Many people at our airport were trained by Jim decades ago,’ it states. “Some now have white hair or no hair at all. With thousands of hours of bush flying and float plane experience, Jim is the instructor of choice for seaplane ratings and taildragger conversion. His vast experience, knowledge and his caring attitude are a safe flying asset to our school.”

Georgas and the company extended their thoughts to Stevens’ “immediate family of wife, sons and daughters and grandchildren who knew and loved him as ‘Grandpa Jim,’ our thoughts and prayers are with you at this time.”

And Georgas stressed that his legacy of teaching will continue with his students. “To the group of youthful, highly trained and caring Instructors who are struggling with the loss of a dear friend and respected colleague,” he concluded, “the lesson is not over by a long-shot.”