Crews searching for pilot missing after plane crashes off Newfoundland's east coast
ST. JOHN'S – Crews are searching for a pilot missing in the waters off the east coast of Newfoundland after a pontoon plane crashed this morning while en route to Portugal.
Len Hickey with the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Halifax says officials received an SOS and an emergency transmitter alert from a small, single-engine American pontoon plane at about 9:08 a.m. Atlantic time.
The signals originated from an area roughly 225 kilometres off the coast of St. John's, N.L.
Hickey says a crew including a Coast Guard vessel, two local fishing boats, a Cormorant helicopter and a Hercules aircraft have been looking for the pilot all day.
He says crews were able to find one of the plane's pontoons, some debris and an empty orange life raft, but so far there is no sign of the pilot, who was the lone occupant.
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The Transportation Safety Board says the Air Tractor AT-802 took off from the St. John's International Airport and was being flown to an unspecified destination in Portugal.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 29, 2025.
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Winnipeg Free Press
a day ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Serving a greying church
'God must like old people. He keeps creating more of them.' So quipped Scott Tolhurst, a former pastor who, over the course of his 48 years in ministry, developed a heart for service to seniors. Current demographics prove him right. According to Statistics Canada, seniors are the fastest-growing group in Canada. Today there are over seven million Canadians 65 and older — or about 20 per cent of the population. By 2068 that is projected to rise to 25 per cent. But it's not just society that's greying; so are churches. According to the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, in 2024 36 per cent of members of American congregations were over 65. At the same time, the percentage of those under 35 who attended religious services of all denominations fell to 32 per cent. Graham Hughes / THE CANADIAN PRESS files According to Statistics Canada, seniors are the fastest-growing group in Canada. Or, as the institute put it, there are now more churchgoers older than 65 than younger than 35 in U.S. churches — and likely in Canada, too. Despite the rising number of older adults in congregations, many churches are still focused mostly on serving younger people and families, Tolhurst said. 'Seniors can be people nobody thinks of much,' said the 69-year-old. 'These are people who were very loyal, sacrificial, and who had a love for Jesus beyond words. But now they are often on the periphery in the church, left on their own.' What hurts many seniors is how their churches don't see them as having much to offer beyond money. For Tolhurst, that's a form of spiritual ageism. 'Churches need to shift their thinking to see seniors as a resource in their congregations,' he said. 'Seniors still want to serve. They have given all their lives. They're not ready to stop now.' He acknowledges seniors face unique challenges that can impact their service, such as health, loss, grief, loss of independence and other limitations. 'But they still have much to give,' he says. 'They just need someone to ask them.' Jane Kuepfer directs the Schlegel Institute in Spirituality & Aging at Conrad Grebel University College in Waterloo. She also feels many churches today don't value older people. Instead, many are putting all their efforts into attracting younger people. This is a great loss. 'There is great potential in older people,' Kuepfer said. 'They are an incredible resource. We need to encourage churches to pay more attention to people in the third act of life.' Kuepfer wants churches to realize God doesn't stop calling people to various kinds of service just because they're older. 'God will call us to different things at different stages of our lives,' she said. But, she added, God still calls — including when people are older. The best way for churches to do a better job of serving seniors is by just listening to them, Kuepfer said. 'Find out what they need to keep them spiritually sustained and healthy. Ask them what they need, where they're at and how they might become involved,' she said. As for churches worried about their futures, she suggests they would do well to focus on who is in the pews right now. 'What if the future is serving older adults? An older congregation doesn't infer a dying congregation,' she said. Tom McCormick, 75, felt a call to serve seniors when he was in his 20s. He ended up serving people in long-term care for some 50 years and also wrote two books on nursing home ministry. For him, serving seniors is 'about following a scriptural mandate. It's what it means to be the people of God.' What disappoints McCormick is how few churches seem interested in service to seniors. 'When I talk to churches, I'm often told they want to focus on the emerging generation, there's more future there,' he said. 'It must break the Lord's heart to see older people neglected by the Church in this way.' McCormick is also disappointed by the lack of courses about ministry to seniors at Canadian seminaries. 'Seminaries tell me [that subject] isn't marketable,' he says. And yet, he noted, people graduating as clergy today will find themselves in churches with a large number of seniors — but with little training in how to minister to them and their unique needs. 'Not enough seminaries are preparing clergy for this reality. It's a real blind spot,' he said. In 1971, singer-songwriter John Prine wrote a song titled Hello in There, about an older couple whose children had moved away and left their parents on their own. In the song, the couple describes the loneliness they felt. The chorus goes like this: 'You know that old trees just grow stronger And old rivers grow wider every day Sundays Kevin Rollason's Sunday newsletter honouring and remembering lives well-lived in Manitoba. Old people just grow lonesome Waiting for someone to say 'Hello in there, hello.'' I wonder how many churches, and other places of worship, are saying hello to seniors as society ages? faith@ The Free Press is committed to covering faith in Manitoba. If you appreciate that coverage, help us do more! Your contribution of $10, $25 or more will allow us to deepen our reporting about faith in the province. Thanks! BECOME A FAITH JOURNALISM SUPPORTER John LonghurstFaith reporter John Longhurst has been writing for Winnipeg's faith pages since 2003. He also writes for Religion News Service in the U.S., and blogs about the media, marketing and communications at Making the News. Read full biography Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
Global News
2 days ago
- Global News
Lost for over a century, Heiltsuk Nation celebrates return of bentwood box
The Heiltsuk First Nation is celebrating the return of a precious piece of history, lost to their people for more than a century. The nation held a special reunification ceremony for the bentwood box last Friday that coincided with a feast to mark the ratification of their written constitution. 'I was very emotional,' said Christine Smith Martin, CEO of Coastal First Nations, who helped facilitate the return of the box from an American family to the Heiltsuk Nation. 2:03 Heiltsuk Nation ratifies new written constitution through celebratory feast 'We really want to tell art collectors or whoever may have boxes similar to this, the right thing to do is to bring it home, to make sure those boxes make it home if they can because its an important piece for us, there' s a lot of teachings on that box, there's a lot of things artists might not have seen yet.'' Story continues below advertisement Bentwood boxes were specialized, watertight containers fabricated from a single piece of cedar wood that has been steamed and curved, then fastened shut with wooden pegs. Elroy white, an archeologist, hereditary chief and elected councillor with the Heiltsuk, said they were used to carry trade goods up and down the coast, as well as for the storage of important items like instruments or regalia. They were also used to store and prepare food. He said the Heiltsuk became well known for their skill in crafting the boxes in the 1860s, after their population was decimated by smallpox and came together in a single community. Ethnographers who visited the community documented them and spread the word, and soon collectors and academics from around the world began seeking them out. Get breaking National news For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen. Sign up for breaking National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy 'That was their premise, that they were going to preserve this cultural way of these First Nations, they were called Indians back then,' he said. 'They were either sold or they were coerced from the owners.' The provenance of this particular box is unknown, Elwood said, save that it passed through collections and galleries before being purchased in Vancouver in 2020. He believes it was made some time in the 1880s, but said that when items pass through galleries their back history is typically not shared, and information like the artist who made them is lost. Story continues below advertisement That's when Janet and Dave Deisley, a couple from Salt Lake City, Utah, purchased it at the Douglas Reynolds Gallery on Granville Street. 2:11 Heiltsuk Nation celebrates 'powerful, emotional' return of historic chief's seat 'After Dave bought the box we had we had it in our home for a couple of years,' Janet Deisley told Global News. But the item never felt right in the couple's collection, and they decided to return it — free of charge — reaching out to Coastal First Nations for help in connecting it to the Heiltsuk. 'The community in which those artifacts were created is where they belong from a spiritual sense,' Dave Diesley said. 'I would imagine they felt what we felt when we had it in our office for that short time. You can feel. It's like a piece of an ancestor wanting to come home … you look at it and you see that history in there,' Martin said. Story continues below advertisement 'I would imagine they felt that yearning, because it's not just a box, there are spirits that are attached to it, there are ancestors that are attached to that.' Coastal First Nations accepted the box, but it stayed in their office for some time as they worked to arrange an appropriate return. White came to Vancouver to authenticate the box and work on the best way and time to get it home safely. 'I knew it would have no back history, but the important part was …. it was still important to the Heiltsuk,' he said. 'Elroy came down and did some ceremony in our office, and we had a talk to the box and let them know they are going home now. It's been a long journey as you can imagine, since the 1800s, since this box has been away from their territory.' 2:11 Heiltsuk Nation hold constitution ratification ceremony Last week, the box was honoured in the Heiltsuk big house in Bella Bella as a part of the constitution ceremonies, and members had the opportunity to get up close and see a piece of their lost history. Story continues below advertisement 'It was so heartfelt to see that, seeing the artists looking at it and sort of pointing out different things,' Martin said. For White, it is just one step in the ongoing process to repatriate Heiltsuk culture that was taken from the community and now resides in museums, galleries and private collections around the world. The nation has spent decades building a database of items and has identified 34 institutions around the world that house more than 1,000 Heiltsuk items. 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CBC
2 days ago
- CBC
Relatives of lost fishers say lives at risk without mandatory vessel stability checks
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