Lionel Austin Vines (1906 – 1941)
Lionel Vines was born in Petitcodiac, New Brunswick. He received aviation training at East Boston Airport and with Great Western Airways, Calgary. From 1929 to 1937, he worked for Great Western Airways, Independent Airways, Edmonton, Brandon Aero Association, Fort William Aero Club as Pilot Instructor, Pioneer Airways, Vancouver, and Northern Airways, Carcross. In 1937, Vines joined the British Yukon Navigation Co. and was promoted in 1940 to chief pilot. In 1932, he and Ellaline White were married, and they made their home in Whitehorse. Vines had a record of 5,000 hours in the air and was known as a safe and skilful pilot. Lionel Vines and Ernest “Chappie” Chapman were killed when the British Yukon Navigation’s Fairchild CF-AXJ crashed near the Dawson airport.1)
This was the second time that Chapman had tried to get 1302 pounds of freight into his Bonnet Plume trading post run by the Barz brothers, Art and Ernie. On 24 January 1941, Vines and Chapman had flown as far as the Bonnet Plume but could not land due to the weather. On 31 January 1941, Vines flew from Whitehorse and picked up Chapman and his cargo at Dawson. The plane took off and Vines aligned it along the Klondike River. Vines was running on his reserve tank which ran out of gas. By the time he realized his mistake and switched tanks, a wing clipped a tall popular tree, and the plane crashed. Miss de Montigny was employed as a cook at Fournier’s ranch near the airport and called to report the crash.2)
Pilot Vernon Bookwalter of White Pass Airways circled the vicinity and found the Fairchild in the poplars about fifty feet from the water. Bookwalter landed at the airport and, with other Company employees, rushed to the scene where they found the plane with one wing torn off and the pilot and the passengers beyond help. Lionel Vines was buried in Whitehorse.3)