A war hero and retired judge is being identified as the pilot who died in a plane crash near Alberta's badlands.
Friends and colleagues told CTV News that 88-year-old Doug Matheson was the pilot of the small plane that went down near Castor, Alta., earlier in the week.
Matheson was a retired Court of Queen's Bench Justice and had been flying for over 65 years. He was a fighter pilot during the Second World War.
Federal officials confirmed Wednesday morning that a person was found dead in the wreckage of a downed airplane in east-central Alberta.
The plane was located late Tuesday afternoon by search and rescue teams. The wreckage was spread out over a contained area, near Castor, Alta., 260 kilometres southeast of Edmonton.
Unstable weather in the area made it difficult for investigators to gain access to the site, a swampy area filled with brush.
The plane vanished after leaving Edmonton's City Centre Airport on Monday. Search and rescue officials said the hunt for the pilot began after the plane failed to return home from a flight to southern Alberta. The pilot was operating a Beechcraft Bonanza V35B and was the only occupant.
The pilot was scheduled to take a flight over the Badlands, without landing, and return to Edmonton within a few hours of taking off.
"The last known position that was had was exactly from the air traffic control radar and they said the last position known was near Drumheller," said Lt. Annie Morin. The pilot left from Edmonton's City Centre Airport shortly before noon Monday and was last seen on air traffic control's radar shortly after.
The initial search commenced around 6 p.m. Bill Zimmer, zone commander for a civilian search and rescue organization, said the missing pilot is known for his ability to make good decisions in the air.
Investigators are on the scene hoping to determine the cause of the crash. "We'll be collecting a lot of information and through a process of elimination then focus the information down to the areas of underlying causes and contributing factors to the occurrence," said Jon Lee from the National Transportation Safety Board of Canada.
The plane was built in 1970 and has been described by aviation buffs as the Cadillac of the skies.
"It has a more powerful engine capable of higher cruise speeds and it is a performance type airplane," said investigator, Mike Tomm.
Later in the afternoon, the pilot's family arrived at the crash site but did not speak to reporters. A report on the cause of the crash could take up to a year.
With files from CTV's Joel Gotlib
