Pilot Killed as Plane Crashes Near Saint-Georges, Quebec, After a Remembrance Day Flypast

A pilot was killed on Wednesday, November 11, 2026, when a small plane crashed near the airport in Saint-Georges, Quebec, minutes after a formation flypast over the town’s Remembrance Day ceremony. The pilot was alone on board and was declared dead at the scene, according to Sûreté du Québec spokesperson Frédéric Deshaies.

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) said the same afternoon that it was deploying a team of investigators to the site in the Beauce region, about 60 miles (100 km) south of Quebec City.

What happened in Saint-Georges

The City of Saint-Georges said in a statement, quoted by The Canadian Press, that the crash happened around 11 a.m. in a wooded area near 10e Rue, close to the airport. Citing the city’s fire service, it said the plane caught fire on impact while the pilot was on approach to land.

The city also confirmed the pilot had just taken part in the Remembrance Day commemoration. Mayor Manon Bougie called the crash “truly sad and terrible” in the statement.

Speaking to LCN within the hour, Bougie said the plane had left the city’s airport and was flying in a “missing man” formation with five other aircraft, TVA Nouvelles reported. She said one of the planes went down in the woods on approach to the airport.

The pilot was a man in his sixties, Radio-Canada reported, and Le Soleil reported that he was from the Beauce. His name had not been released at the time of writing.

What witnesses describe

A Beauce resident told The Canadian Press she saw six planes overhead at 10:50 a.m., about 10 minutes before the crash, and that everything looked normal. A witness quoted by Noovo Info said one plane was flying lower than the rest before it disappeared behind the trees and black smoke rose.

Another resident, Serge Doyon, told TVA Nouvelles he heard an engine that kept cutting out and catching again as the formation passed. That is one eyewitness account, and no official source has said what caused the crash.

Officials have not named the aircraft type or registration. A man whose brother flew in the formation told FM93 that the six planes were Mooney M20s, and the station said the aircraft belonged to the “CAB Boys” of the Club aéronautique de Beauce. Neither detail has been confirmed by the TSB or police.

If that account holds, the type is one of the most common in general aviation. The Mooney M20 is a four-seat, single-engine piston plane, most versions with retractable landing gear, and more than 11,000 have been built since it entered service in 1955.

What a missing man formation is

The missing man formation is an aerial salute flown at funerals and memorials, often to honor fallen aviators and service members. In the classic version, a formation passes low over the ceremony and one aircraft pulls up and away, leaving a visible gap. An older variant simply flies the formation with one position left empty.

In Saint-Georges, the salute ended in tragedy within sight of the ceremony. It all played out “almost live” during the celebrations, the mayor told LCN.

What the TSB does next

The TSB said its team would gather information and assess the occurrence. TSB spokesperson Liam MacDonald told Le Soleil that investigators were on site, and a spokesperson told The Canadian Press that no further information was available.

That assessment decides how deep the investigation goes. Under the TSB’s occurrence classification policy, a fatal accident can be anything from a Class 5 data-gathering file, closed with a database extract in about 60 days, to a Class 3 detailed investigation with a 450-day target.

The policy weighs whether investigators are likely to find new safety lessons, not only the toll, and says even a Class 5 file may involve fatalities. A Class 4 limited-scope report, the middle option, carries a 220-day target and has no formal findings or recommendations.

The Sûreté du Québec is also investigating, CTV News reported. Until the TSB classifies the occurrence, it is not known which kind of report Saint-Georges will get, or when.