Pilot killed in Quebec Remembrance Day crash had lifelong passion for flying, friends say

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Friends of Daniel Parent — the man killed in a plane crash during a Remembrance Day event in Saint-Georges-de-Beauce, Que., — are remembering him for being an excellent and experienced pilot.

Friends of Daniel Parent — the 68-year-old man killed in a plane crash during a Remembrance Day event in Saint-Georges-de-Beauce, Que., — are remembering him for being an excellent and experienced pilot.

“He was driven by an all-consuming passion for aviation,” Robert Bergeron, a fellow pilot and friend of Parent, told Radio-Canada.

He recalled a story from Parent's earlier days, when he landed a small two-seater Cessna 150 in his parents’ farm field near Saint-Honoré, Que.

It’s normal for young pilots to be a bit more daring and adventurous, Bergeron said, but Parent had grown into a mature man with nothing left to prove.

Robert Bergeron was presiding over Wednesday’s Remembrance Day ceremony in Saint-George on Wednesday for a local branch of the Royal Canadian Legion. (Radio-Canada)

Parent’s plane of choice eventually became the Mooney M20C, a high-performance aircraft designed for cross-country flying. According to the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB), Parent had been flying a single-engine Mooney on Wednesday when he crashed.

Bergeron shared his admiration of Parent, who he said flew his Mooney plane across the continent, "as far away as Alaska, California and the Grand Canyon."

He said it was only after Parent had completed several of those journeys that he found the courage to follow in his footsteps.

“I always described him — and I told him this on several occasions — as my mentor.”

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