VANCOUVER - SEVEN people died in a plane crash on a remote island off British Columbia's south coast on Sunday, but one man - a passenger - walked out alive.

The Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Victoria confirmed seven of the eight people on board the Grumman Goose airplane had been found dead.

'The great news is, some guy ... walked out and is alive and the Canadian Coast Guard found him on the beach' of Thormanby Island, said Lieutenant. Margeurite Dodds-Lepinski of the rescue centre.

Pacific Coastal Airlines vice president Spencer Smith said the survivor was a passenger. He was taken to a hospital.

He said the pilot, who was among the dead, was quite experienced.

The victims' names weren't immediately released.

Coast Guard and Search and Rescue crews started scouring the area of Thormanby Island, off B.C.'s Sunshine Coast north of Vancouver, after a resident reported hearing an aircraft in distress on Sunday morning.

Not long after the report of a potential crash, the rescue centre received a call from Pacific Coastal Airlines, reporting that one of its planes was missing.

The Grumman Goose airplane had left Vancouver International Airport on a charter flight.

In August, another Pacific Coastal Airlines Grumman Goose crashed on Vancouver Island. Five people were killed and two survived. -- AP