Trans-Canada Air Lines Flight 810

Infobox Airliner accident|name=Trans-Canada Air Lines Flight 810
Date=December 9, 1956
Type=Crash (CFIT)
Site=Mount Slesse, near Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada
Fatalities=62
Injuries= 0
Aircraft Type=Canadair Northstar
Operator=Trans-Canada Airlines
Tail Number= CF-TFD [ASN Database]
Passengers=59
Crew=3
Survivors =none

Trans-Canada Air Lines Flight 810 was a Canadair Northstar on a scheduled flight from Vancouver to Calgary (continuing to Regina, Winnipeg, and Toronto). The plane crashed into Mount Slesse near Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada on 9 December 1956 after encountering severe icing and turbulence over the mountains. All 62 people on board died, making this one of the worst airline crashes in the world at that date [O'Keefe and MacDonald, p 146] ; it still ranks as the 6th worst air disaster in Canadian history [ASN Database] .

Due to the remoteness and difficulty of the terrain, the crash site was not located until the following May. Among the victims were five players from the Canadian Football League on their way home from the annual all-star game in Vancouver.

Summary of Events

Flight 810-9 left Vancouver International Airport at 6:10 PM on 9 December, assigned to fly the Green 1 air lane east to Calgary, Alberta, though the pilots asked for and received clearance for a routing via airways Red 44 and Red 75 instead, which took the aircraft past Cultus Lk. and into a weather system called a 'trowal'. The pilots climbed to 19,200ft by 6:55, when they experienced a fire warning indication in No. 2 (the inner port motor), which was then shut down as a precaution (false fire warnings in Northstar aircraft had been noted on numerous previous occasions.) They radioed Vancouver Air Traffic Control to notify them of the event ("looks like we had a fire"), requested a return flight path on Airway Green 1 back to Vancouver Airport (the flight path with the most favourable terrain for an aircraft losing altitude), but inexplicably made a starboard turn instead of a port one and wound up heading west-southwest a good 12 miles south of Green 1 and straight in to the unforgiving teeth of the border mountains.

At 7:10, the plane radioed that they were passing Hope, and was given clearance to descend to 8000 ft. This was the last communication received from the plane. The plane was also being tracked by an American radar installation in Birch Bay, WA throughout most of its flight after turning around, but at 7:11 pm the station lost track of Flt. 810 in the vicinity of 8,530 ft. Mt. Silvertip just east-northeast of where the plane finally went down moments later.

The cause of the crash is given in the official report as being the combination of several factors with the main ones being icing of the wings and fuselage and the loss of No. 2 engine, but many questions remain, including why the aircraft turned away from Green 1 rather than toward it (and reporting to ATC that it *was* on Green 1), and why this was picked up by neither the pilot nor First Officer despite spirit compasses and several radio aids-to-navigation on board which should've made the error rather glaring.

As the aircraft flew straight into the third peak of Mt. Slesse well in excess of cruising speed - and crashed in remote and dangerously inhospitable territory - very little information could be gleaned from the wreckage itself as to the cause of what was then the worst aircraft calamity in Canadian history. The wreckage and remains of the passengers and crew were left on the mountain at the crash site (though body parts found during the Coroner's inquiry were interred in two common graves on the mountainside), and despite years of erosion and avalanche, remains of the aircraft can be seen to this day.

Crew and Passenger List

Crew

*Captain Alan Jack Clarke; Vancouver
*First Officer John Clarence Terry Boon; North Vancouver
*Flight Attendant Dorothy Elizabeth Bjornson; Vancouver

Passengers

British Columbia

*Richard Theodore Custer, Burnaby
*Fred W. Edwards, Vancouver
*John Edward Henderson, Vancouver
*Kenneth Roy Laird, Vancouver
*John David Lyall, Vancouver
*Ian Hamilton MacBeth, West Vancouver
*Roland W Mitchell, Vancouver
*Robert John Muir, Powell River
*John Archibald Munro, Vancouver
*Duncan MacKenzie Stewart, Vancouver
*John Struthers, Vancouver
*Leslie Edward Webb, Vancouver
*Arthur Lawrence West, Vancouver,
*Frank John Wright, Vancouver
*Harold Edwin Wright, Vancouver

Alberta

*Mabel Florine Adams, Calgary
*Helen Phelps Chapman, Calgary
*Harold Cleven, Calgary
*Karl Warren Collett, Calgary
*Philip Edwin Gower, Calgary
*Margaret Jean Grant, Calgary
*Jean Christian Hamilton, Edmonton
*Robert Winslow Hamilton, Edmonton
*Audrey Cameron Harper, Calgary
*John Bennett Hemming, Calgary
*Aline Litovchenko, Calgary
*Harold Clarence McElroy, Calgary
*James Milne McKay, Calgary
*Edwin Stanley Pettit, Calgary
*Sarah C Rose, Calgary
*Patrick Rowan, Calgary
*Susan Gail Rowan, Calgary
*Walter Peter Rowan, Calgary
*Yvonne Rowan, Calgary

askatchewan

*Melvin Howard Beckett, Regina, CFL player with the Saskatchewan Roughriders
*Wilfred Emde, Indian Head
*Mario Joseph DeMarco, Regina, former NFL player, CFL player with the Saskatchewan Roughriders
*Gordon Henry Sturtridge, Regina, CFL player with the Saskatchewan Roughriders
*Mildred A Sturtridge, Regina
*Raymond Nicholas Syrnyk, Regina, CFL player with the Saskatchewan Roughriders

Manitoba

*Denise Marie Beernaerts, St. Boniface
*Donald Arthur Holden, Winnipeg

Ontario

*Clarence Gordon Kennedy, Toronto
*Frances Eleanor Welch, Toronto

Quebec

*Maxwell Sheppard Bailey, Mount Royal

Hong Kong

*Cheng Sao Chen Low
*Yuen Gar
*Yuen Wah Yoon
*Lee Wah Ying Yuen

Japan

*Hatsuko Hashimoto Dong, Osaka

United States

*Marion Lewis Bright, Fort Worth
*Eliza Duncan Burt, San Francisco
*Calvin J Jones, Steubenville, CFL player with Winnipeg Blue Bombers
*Anthony Folger, Dallas
*Wong Fook, New York
*Georgina Kafoury, Portland
*Kwan Song, New York
*Russell Smith Stratton, Los Angeles, California
*Joan Elizabeth Williams, San Francisco

Notes

References

* O'Keefe, Betty and MacDonald, Ian, "Disaster on Mount Slesse", Caitlin Press, 2006, ISBN 1-894759-21-4
* cite web
url = http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19561209-1&lang=en
title = Canadair DC-4M2 North Start CF-TFD Mount Slesse, BC
work = Aviation Safety Network Accident Database

See also

*Mount Slesse
*Air safety
*C. Donald Bateman
*CFIT
*EGPWS

External links

* [http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/subscriber/local/story/3808811p-4405459c.html Winnipeg Free Press story about the crash] [Dead Link]
* [http://www.chilliwacktimes.com/issues06/122206/news/122206nn1.html Chilliwack Times] article from 2006 [Dead Link]