A helicopter pilot who fled the scene after his chopper crashed in the Shuswap River in 2023 has finally been arrested.

Vincent Matthew Porteous appeared in a Vernon courtroom Jan. 27 facing five charges including criminal negligence causing bodily harm.

It also appears he may have been using a fake helicopter licence.

Precise details about the incident aren’t yet known but in August 2023 the crash made headlines after the chopper ditched into the Shuswap River, west of Mabel Lake, and the pilot took off.

RCMP said at the time that four passengers were taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and a dog on board was killed.

Numerous eyewitnesses said they’d seen the helicopter flying erratically before the crash.

It’s unclear whether Porteous owned the chopper, which had been registered to a Alaskan company before it was imported into Canada a couple of months before the crash.

Along with criminal negligence causing bodily harm, Porteous has also been charged with dangerous operation of a conveyance, failing to stop, making a false representation to obtain a Canadian aviation document and another charge under the Aeronautics Act.

The charges will add to Porteous’ lengthy criminal record which dates back 20 years and largely in Kelowna.

He’s previously been convicted on weapons charges, dangerous driving, uttering threats, domestic abuse and driving without a licence.

Porteous, born 1986, has also used the aliases Matthew Porteous, Kyle Murray and Shane Aaron Kennedy, according to court records.

In 2018, he made the province’s top 10 most wanted auto crime offender list.

Police described him as “violent, dangerous” in 2016, when he was wanted in connection with stealing a bait snowmobile and truck.

A few months after the theft, his accomplice Ryan Matthew Hall was sentenced to a year in jail, but Porteous managed somehow to avoid detection and was finally given six months house arrest five years after the offence.

Porteous is not in custody and will be back in court in March.