‘This doesn’t happen every day in a small town’: Kelliher mayor on trying week

The village of Kelliher has had a week to remember with a small plane crash on Wednesday and a bank robbery on Thursday.

Darcy King is the mayor of the village, which has a population of only a few hundred people. On Wednesday, he was coming back to town when he got a call to help the fire department get to the site of a plane crash with his ATV. A fuel truck driver saw the plane go down into a ravine but it was hard to access.

“We understand now that he ran out of fuel and was looking for a spot to land,” King said.

STARS Air Ambulance responded to the crash and took the pilot to the hospital. There hasn’t been an update on the condition of the 45-year-old Manitoba man.

On Thursday morning, King had just finished having breakfast when he walked outside and saw a swarm of RCMP officers, police dogs and even a drone outside the local Credit Union. An armed man wearing a mask had robbed it after 9 a.m.

“Everyone’s kind of in shock. The suspect – they didn’t see a getaway vehicle so there was a concern that maybe he was still in the town and they were doing a door-to-door search and they had the police dog out,” King explained.

The local school in Kelliher is very close to the bank, so students were put under a hold and secure with the outside doors locked as a safety precaution for several hours on that day.

“There’s just a concern that you know this doesn’t happen every day in a small town,” King said.

“They say things happen in threes so we’ve got two so far, so let’s hope there’s not a three.”

The suspect is described as Caucasian, in his early 20s; he was wearing a mask or bandana and carrying a rifle and he is still at large.