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Orillia businessman identified as victim in Ramara plane crash

Orillia OPP say Jim Wares, 65, was killed after the ultralight plane he was piloting plunged into frozen Lake Simcoe near Lagoon City
Wares obit photo
Jim Wares was killed in a March 15 plane crash near Lagoon City. The 65-year-old Ramara man was the lone occupant of the plane when it crashed.

The Orillia OPP have identified the victim of a fatal plane crash that occurred March 15.

Police say Jim Wares, 65, of Ramara Township was killed in the crash.

He was the pilot of the 1995 Fisher Super Koala ultralight plane that went down on Lake Simcoe, west of Lagoon City in Ramara, just before 4 p.m. that day.

Witnesses say the plane erupted in flames after making impact with the frozen surface of the lake.

Wares was the lone occupant of the plane, the OPP says.

“When the aircraft impacted the ice, there was a post-crash fire and it completely consumed the aircraft,” said Peter Rowntree, senior investigator with the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB), which was called in to investigate the tragic crash.

He said the plane hit the ice in “a nose-down attitude.”

A team of investigators attended the scene March 16, when the plane was removed and taken to the TSB facility in Richmond Hill.

Rowntree examined the wreckage March 17, but a lot of it was still wet, so he was waiting for it to dry before taking a closer look.

“We’ll see what we can learn from what little is left,” he said, adding the extent of the damage “will certainly hinder our ability to investigate what happened.”

It’s unknown how long the investigation into the cause of the crash will take.

(With files from Nathan Taylor)


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Dave Dawson

About the Author: Dave Dawson

Dave Dawson is community editor of OrilliaMatters.com
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