The woman killed when a small plane dropped onto a Prince George, British Columbia, roadway on the afternoon of August 20, 2026, has been identified as Alex Garneau, a mother of two known across the city’s minor hockey rinks as “the hockey mom” — and the community she spent years driving, organizing and cheering for has raised more than $100,000 for the family she left behind.
Garneau was behind the wheel with her daughter, Josie, when the twin-engine aircraft came down on their car, a family friend wrote on Facebook. Josie walked away from the wreckage largely unharmed, the friend said. Garneau also leaves behind her husband, Jordan Garneau, and their son, Jackson.
Four Vehicles Struck on Foothills Boulevard
The Beechcraft King Air 200, operated by Sekani Air Ltd., was 13 miles from Prince George airport when one of its two engines lost power, leaving the pilot no room to reach the runway. The plane touched down on Foothills Boulevard, roughly 1.5 kilometres north of North Nechako Road, at about 2:20 p.m., and slammed into four vehicles as it came to rest.
The Prince George Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) confirmed that one person died in the August 20 crash, and that the victim was an occupant of one of the vehicles. Everyone aboard the aircraft — six passengers and two crew members — escaped injury.
Paramedics assessed 10 patients at the roadside, BC Emergency Health Services said, and two of them were taken to the hospital in stable condition. Authorities have not publicly released the full extent of the injuries suffered by the other vehicle occupants or by those on the plane.
Jaime Pawliuk, one of the drivers whose vehicle was hit, described a scene that unfolded in seconds. He told CBC the plane was suddenly on top of him. He swerved toward the ditch, he said, but managed only a few feet before the wing tore the roof clean off his vehicle and buried him in broken glass. He walked away with superficial cuts on his hands and shards still in his hair.
“It’s something you only see in movies,” he said, adding that he felt lucky to have gotten out at all.
Another driver, Mohit Arora, said one of the plane’s propellers stopped spinning roughly 10 feet in front of his car. He said he was fortunate the blades never reached him.
The Hockey Mom Behind Every Team
Several minor hockey programs identified Garneau on social media on Sunday, telling their members that the woman killed on Foothills Boulevard was one of their own. Through her husband, Jordan, Garneau had ties to the HPL Kings, the PG Whalers and the Cariboo Hockey program. Both Josie and Jackson play.
The tributes that followed described a woman who rarely sat still. Fundraiser organizers Laura Creighton and Katie Trottier remembered her as a devoted wife, mother, daughter, sister and friend who poured herself into her children’s activities, logging countless hours on the road to practices and games, running events and shouting from the stands.
“She was the kind of person who was behind the scenes of almost every team and activity her kids were part of,” the organizers wrote on the fundraising page.
Friends said she had a habit of showing up for people who needed her, and of making newcomers feel like they had always belonged. For some, they said, she became something closer to family. They also said she carried big ambitions for her two children, both as athletes and as people.
Two GoFundMe campaigns have been set up to support Jordan, Josie and Jackson. As of August 24, the pair of campaigns had collected more than $100,000. Organizers said the money goes directly to the family, covering immediate costs now and longer-term needs as the household absorbs what comes next. The scale of the response, they said, reflects how many people Garneau touched in Prince George.
Investigators Take Over the Scene
The Transportation Safety Board (TSB) has taken charge of the investigation. On Friday, the agency confirmed the sequence that ended in Garneau’s death: the King Air 200 lost power in one engine, the pilot committed to an emergency landing on a city road, and the aircraft struck four vehicles.
Prince George RCMP have urged residents to keep clear of the area while investigators do their work. A final report from the safety board could take months to complete, meaning the technical explanation for why the engine quit is unlikely to arrive soon.
For now, the story in Prince George is not the aircraft or the engine or the 13 miles the plane could not cover. It is a stretch of Foothills Boulevard where a routine afternoon drive ended, a daughter who climbed out of a destroyed car, and a hockey community trying to fill a space that one woman used to occupy almost entirely on her own.