Snowbirds military pilot facing sexual assault charge is named

A Canadian Snowbirds pilot has been formally charged with sexual assault for an incident alleged to have occurred in Barrie.

Maj. Steven Hurlbut, a lead solo pilot with the famed aerial acrobatics flying squad, is going through one depend of sexual assault, following a Canadian Forces Nationwide Investigation Service investigation.

Hurlbut is a Calgary native and navy veteran who joined the famed 431 Squadron in 2021. He began out his profession as an air navigator and labored as a lecturer at Kingston’s Royal Army Faculty for a number of years earlier than transferring to the navy pilot commerce.

He has flown the CF-18 fighter jets in Iraq and Syria, finishing 36 fight missions. In 2016, he was posted to the fighter coaching squadron at Alberta’s CFB Chilly Lake.

The investigation into the alleged incident in Barrie was launched June 14. The Snowbirds had spent the earlier weekend, June 10 and 11, in that metropolis as a part of their cross-country summer time tour.

Nevertheless it was solely a number of days later, on Saturday, that Hurlbut was positioned on administrative go away, in line with a press release launched shortly after 1 p.m. by Air Power commanders in Winnipeg and Moose Jaw, Sask., the place the Snowbirds are based mostly.

Images posted to the Snowbirds’ Fb web page at 10:05 a.m. on that Saturday present that Hurlbut was one in all 4 pilots who took half in an official go to earlier within the week to the Ridgewood Veterans’ Hospital in Saint John, N.B.

The go to got here forward of a deliberate look at an air present in Moncton.

Although weekend flights have been cancelled resulting from poor climate, the Snowbirds nonetheless signed autographs and posed for photos with the general public. Hurlbut, nevertheless, was absent from squadron photographs of public occasions taken Saturday afternoon in Moncton.

The Snowbirds might be flying as an eight-plane formation relatively than with a full complement of 9 Tudor jets “for the foreseeable future,” air power officers have stated.

The Snowbirds’ subsequent look is Wednesday in Gander, N.L., and Saturday in Conception Bay South, N.L., adopted by a Canada Day look, on July 1 in Halifax.

Allan Woods is a Montreal-based employees reporter for the Star. He covers international and nationwide affairs. Observe him on Twitter: @WoodsAllan

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