Wade and aubrey balisky obituary, victims helicopter crash grande prairie alberta
Parents, 2 kids named as victims of a helicopter crash in northern Alberta
About 500 kilometers northwest of Edmonton, there was a crash.
Four people who died in a helicopter crash in northern Alberta on New Year's Day were named as members of a close-knit farming family on Sunday.
The crash killed Wade Balisky, 45, his wife, Aubrey Balisky, 37, and two of their daughters, Jewel, 8, and Fleur, 2.
The other three children are survived by the couple: Chevey, 16, Remington, 14, and Indya, 12.
In the small farming village of DeBolt, Alta., about 45 kilometres east of Grande Prairie, the family lived together.
A statement on behalf of the family was issued on Sunday evening by Chris Warkentin, the Conservative MP for Grande Prairie-Mackenzie and a cousin of Aubrey's.
Warkentin said that Wade, a farmer, enjoyed flying, travelling, boating and playing, and shared with his family great joy in doing these things. Aubrey was an artist and photographer who loved her family and gave constant encouragement to them and her friends, Warkentin said.
'Wade and Aubrey loved their extended family, their friends, their neighbors,' said Warkentin. "The coffee was always on at their farm and their door was always open. They made strangers into friends at an alarming rate and made a priority of keeping those relationships meaningful."
The couple shared a profound Christian faith and on Jan. 19 they would have celebrated their 20th anniversary.
He was close to his cousin Aubrey, Warkentin said, and he grew up in the same neighborhood as Wade, whom he described as an' experienced pilot.'
"The families are very, very close," "It goes back a couple of generations, at least a generation or two that our families have known each other."
Under Investigation Crash
The helicopter crashed on a property that Aubrey's father and his own father jointly owned, Warkentin said, which he claimed was "totally coincidental."
The crash site is about 500 kilometers northwest of Edmonton, in Birch Hills County.
"Our families want to thank all those who have reached out to us over the past hours and days. We are overwhelmed by your love and support," said Warkentin.
"Thank you for your prayers. We need them now and will need them in the hours, days and years ahead."
Police were dispatched Friday night, Alberta RCMP said Saturday, to respond to a call from an emergency location transmitter in a Robinson R44 helicopter in the Birch Hills County area.
A spokesman for the Transportation Safety Board of Canada said on Saturday that the agency had finished its initial inspection of the site and said investigators would now collect details, including the training background of the pilot and the maintenance history of the aircraft.