Yellowknife (Jan 12/07) -With low cloud cover and dark skies, the military's rescue team couldn't see much when they first got to Yellowknife on Jan 4.

The team was called in last week to look for the Arctic Sunwest Charter Cessna 185 aircraft reported missing at 3:10 p.m. on Jan. 3. The pilot of the Cessna had radioed that he would make an emergency landing.

The search and rescue team in Winnipeg received a page at 3 a.m. The crew members loaded their Hercules aircraft and were ready to head off in just two hours. But once they arrived in Yellowknife three hours and 25 minutes later, their search was halted by bad weather, darkness, and ice. "We get a bit antsy when we're flying in clouds, in the dark," said Capt. Bryn Elliot, who served as navigator for the rescue operation. He also noted that they were getting a lot of ice over the plane.

Efforts to break the cloud by flying below them at 700 feet didn't help as the darkness thwarted search efforts. The flight team called off the search around 6:30 a.m. to wait until day break and take off again. At that point, it only took an hour to spot the wrecked plane.

"It looked like a plane sitting there overnight," said Capt Elliot. "But there were no signs of anyone moving."

Master Cpl. Shawn Harrison was the first to spot the plane.

"You could see that it was a plane on the lake," said Harrison. "Once we peeled around you could see wings broken, the wing tips were touching the ground."

The problem with jumping, however, was that with the low cloud cover restricted the plane to 900 feet. The parachuters can only jump from 1,200 feet. To make sure the rescuers would land on site, they had to jump through the clouds, guessing the best point at which to jump.

"We were jumping blind," said Harrison. "But by the time the chute opened you could see the ground."

He and warrant officer Bryan Pierce managed to land within 500 metre of the site.

"Once on site, I could see movement coming from inside the aircraft." said Harrison. "It was obvious we had a survivor."

Harrison said that the survivor, Alfred Tsetta, was talking, alert and conscious. He was sitting in the back of the plane, facing backwards. Tsetta told Harrison that he put himself in that position to make himself more comfortable.

The remaining three passengers, Harrison noted, were still buckled into their seatbelts.

"I had suspicions they had died [on impact]," said Harrison based on his observations of their body positions.

Harrison and Pierce then gave first aid to Tsetta, who complained of a broken leg. They splinted the leg, and accompanied Tsetta on the Great Slave Lake helicopter that transported him to the hospital.

Harrison reported that Tsetta complained mostly of thirst, more so than of the pain in his leg.

"He was really thirsty in all that he suffered," said Harrison.

Harrison can only suspect what the evening was like for Tsetta.

"He mentioned that he was awake all night out there," he said.