CRASH! Geneseo!! Brampton Triplane (C-GDRI) NO MORE!!!

THANKFULLY THE PILOT, Joseph Auger, of Brampton Ontario, was relatively unhurt.

After a rough landing, on Saturday July 9, in which Mr. Auger's Fokker DR-1 Triplane (C-GDRI) did cartwheels through a New York cornfield, the lucky pilot was able to walk away from the crash with only a broken arm! In the 18 year history of the Geneseo Air Show there's only been one other crash. That too involved a World War I replica. A Fokker as well.

As fate would have it, the third accident at this airshow would happen the very next day, on Sunday and involved an Beechcraft Bonanza. That mishap was attributed to pilot error.

All right back to the tri-plane, which is, actually is, a replica.This replica made from Fokker plans was operated by Great War Flying Museum in Brampton. The Fokker Triplane had been participating in an re-enactment dogfight when suddenly the aircraft suffered an engine failure. The pilot was able to bring the plane down successfully…but as she was landing…its wheel snagged something, and then violently flipped over on impact.

The airplane is a complete write off.

The picture I have posted is from BETTER TIMES at last year's Brampton air show (Great War Flying Museum Open House and Fly-In) approximately 9 months ago.

Here's a crash photo: www.airliners.net/photo/Fokker-Dr-1-replica/1949320/L/

Thank God, the pilot is all right…but it still remains a very sad loss of an absolutely fantastic airplane.

A flying replica this grand, this precisely detailed, is the result of thousands of hours of devoted work, both by its owner and Museum club members. Sad, indeed ~

JAN BURTON: Self-Directed Flight 621 Researcher

A LOT OF AIR CANADA DC-8 artifacts take a little research to identify original form and function.

Rarely do any scream Douglas DC-8.

Even more rarely would any pieces of DC-8…that we find…be READILY identifiable by the general public.

Well—here's one.

Everyone knows what this is…what this was.

JAN BURTON found this only a week ago…

It is the air conditioning nozzle that can be found right beside the overhead lamp that is available to all passengers from the comfort of their seats. AIR CANADA DC-8s had two interior styles. The Second Douglas Jetliner Interior, or the update, placed these air nozzles ABOVE the passenger seats. In the original Air Canada DC-8s the air nozzles were found in the seat backside, directly, in front of you.

FLIGHT 621 ::: The Lost Photographs

FOR THE LONGEST TIME, I thought the Terry Waddington photo was the only photo in existence that captured CF–TIW, the Air Canada Stretch DC-8 that crashed in a Castlemore farmer's field on July 5, 1970.

But…I was wrong.

There were two other photographs taken of the ill-fated aircraft. On the very day of the accident!

The Terry Waddington photo was taken just a month or two before the aircraft was delivered to Air Canada. That photo, which is the top photo depicted here, shows us the brand-new Air Canada DC-8 (tail fin number 878) Canadian registration CF-TIW doing engine run ups amongst a host of other pre-delivery DC-8s at the old Long Beach, California McDonnell Douglas aircraft plant.

But, back to the other photographs…

Apparently, a travellor racing along in a cab on his way to the airport (somewhere in the northeast corner of Mississauga) snapped two photographs of the disintegrating Air Canada DC-8—just as it was beset with three explosions, and just as it really started to break apart. Timeline about 25 seconds before it actually crashed.

After these photographs were taken of the fatal flight, the photographer knowing he had captured something significant…turned them over to the proper authorities, likely the RCMP, when he arrived at Toronto International Airport in Malton.

One problem though—nobody knew where the hell he had taken them from! And no one thought to ask the photographer before he departed on his flight!

I mean…where was the racing cab barrelling along, where was it actually located, when the telltale photos were snapped? Back in the 70s, it was rare for folk to be walking around with a camera! Not like today! On top of that, it was even rarer for photos to be taken of an airliner moments before it crashed. It takes a certain presence of mind, and a steady hand to capture such a horrific and fast-moving event. It's there…and seconds later it's gone. And camera settings were not automatic, back then! Let's remember the skill level involved, shall we?

Of course, everyone remembers the ominous grainy photo of a 180 degree banked, sideways flying American Airlines DC-10 ( Flight 191) as it passed over the terminal at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, only seconds before it crashed. I mean that photo was famous! And here, we have not one, but two(!) photos of an airliner in crash sequence and these never make it to the Toronto papers, were kept secret at the time, now can't be found, and no one even knows where to look!

Oh, the secrecy! In Canada with our multiple layers of worthless bureaucracy, it isn't enough to say the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing…it's more serious than that! It is more accurate to say the right-handed thumb, doesn't know what the right-handed index finger is doing!!

Anyway, before I lose my marbles at the sheer stupidity of that fact which is resettling in on me, and before my BP reading goes right off the dial…lets return to the subject of the missing Flight 621 photos.

Mississauga Roads and Construction with copies of the photos in hand, were sent out to determine the exact spot the photographs were taken from. The photographs were incredibly important to the crash investigators, because miraculously, these photographs were able to certify, beyond any doubt, investigators assumptions that three explosions had indeed taken place aboard the struggling airplane moments before it crashed in Castlemore, Ontario.

The diagram in the lower right-hand part of the book page was created from the two, now missing photos. Investigators noted that the three explosions were visible within the photos as "puffs of smoke".

Engine #3 is seen separating and falling to the ground, followed thereafter by the starboard wingtip, and finally joined by Fuel tank #4's upper plating. Then the still brand-new DC-8 crashed. I've taken the liberty of adding Air Canada DC-8s to the diagram, in the approximate position and angle, the photographer would have captured the crashing airplane in—for the benefit of the reader.

One final mystery remains to this day. No two! Who was THAT photographer? And where the hell are these photographs today?

We have the diagram…but we don't have the photos!

That—could only happen in Canada!

.

ADDITIONAL
How did the stewardesses, look back in 1970? SEE: www.flickr.com/photos/70fashion/3353308678/in/pool-100737...

The FLIGHT 621 stewardesses had these exact uniforms with one noted exception. Some of the stewardesses on board that day, the day of the crash, would have had the Galaxy-themed uniforms which would be the same style, but they would be blue in colour, not Air Canada red! CF-TIW was a Galaxy-themed DC-8.


(As with all my articles…this is a first post that will be revised several times in the weeks and months ahead.)

Canada's WORST PILOT

Captain Norman Ramsay.

THERE YOU HAVE IT…the only known photograph of TRANS-CANADA-AIR-LINES L-1049 Super Constellation (call letters, CF-TGG, as seen in the RARE photo) that crashed in Brampton 56 years ago in 1954, at Norman's hands. Norm was attempting to land in Toronto!

No one was hurt, but there was a famous golfer on board the TCA flight. The Connie, however, burned to the ground!

Location of photo is approximate crash location.

FULL STORY, here: www.flickr.com/photos/78215847@N00/4066337145/

Only 3 YEARS LATER, August 4, 1957…Norman, now working for another airline, flying another airplane, a DC-4 for Maritime Central Airways, authored the worst crash in Canadian history (at the time) that would leave 79 passengers and crew dead in a remote spot near Issoudun, Quebec.

Norm flew his airplane INTO an active cumulonimbus cloud, that included heavy rain and strong gusty winds. Most pilots fly around severe weather conditions.

I DID significant post-production work on this photo.



© 2010 Special Projects In Research, © 2010 Paul Cardin

FLIGHT 621 : Brampton (Toronto/GTA's) WORST Aviation Disaster - Denise Goulet

MY RESEARCH PARTNER out in Quebec, Pierre Tremblay, who has done extensive research on all Flight 621 victims from the province of Quebec, disclosed to me that he had actually known Denise Goulet (pictured above) back in the summer of 1967!

Pierre had spent a good part of his summer at EXPO 67 which was being held in Montreal. He went several times to the Bell Canada Telephone Pavilion, and there chatted with the ever cheerful hostess Denise, as he was then fascinated by telecommunication.

And maybe a little by her, as well.

The crash of Flight 621, of course, was front page news in the Montréal-Matin on July 6th, 1970, the day after the crash.

Pierre saw the Montréal-Matin crash headline, and was immediately riveted by the coverage of this unexpected Air Canada crash that had occurred the previous morning, on the clearest of days, somewhere in the Toronto region. Still in a state of shock and wonder about the horrific DC-8 crash that had claimed all 109 lives, he quickly read through the front page coverage and followed up on page three. There, his eyes fell on those ominous row pictures of the now deceased Air Canada flight crew, and its stewardesses.

One picture stood out.

Pierre was floored!

There was Denise!!

Oh, poor Denise—

While Pierre had met the exotically attractive Denise when she was then working at the EXPO 67 Bell Canada pavilion, she had already applied to, and been accepted to take the stewardess course. Immediate employment for Denise in the fall, at Air Canada, once EXPO 67 had wrapped up in October.

Aviation, not tele-communications, was Denise's first love.

At 17, Denise already had her first parachute jump under her belt.

And while Miss Denise Goulet had been working as a stewardess for Air Canada for almost three years, she had set her sights on being a pilot!

And guess what? Her father, Henri-Paul, was a pilot!

I guess the apple didn't fall too far from the tree, as they say…

When her father was reached for comment on his daughter's premature death, he told the media,

“Denise always dreamt of aviation. Aviation was in her blood.”

Mr. Goulet, himself a pilot for 25 years, was on duty the morning of the crash when he learned about the terrible tragedy. Henri-Paul was a pilot for the Yvon Fournier company from Trois-Rivières, and had to sprinkle insecticide on the transmission lines of Alcan in Lac St. Jean.

Denise, who was to be 23 on July 12, died seven days short of her birthday.

She had made special arrangements to be aboard the Air Canada "California Galaxy" (Montreal-Toronto-Los Angeles) flight, one of the airlines' new connoisseur flights, in order to meet with her brother, Andre. She was looking forward to journeying to Los Angeles to see her brother, who now resided there. She was going to take a few days off.

In August, Denise was quite excited to be travelling to Paris, with her mother, on an already arranged vacation for the pair.

It was not to be.

On July 10th, sadly just two days before she was to have turned 23, a funeral mass was held for Denise at 10.00 A.M. at St. Odilon Catholic Church, in Cap-de-la-Madeleine, Quebec. There was a large turn out of family and friends to pay their final respects.

Had Denise not died that day, today she would be 62 years old.

And now she looks back at us from eternity, forever only twenty-two…

::: FLIGHT 621 — Picking Up the Pieces ::: DC-8, DC-8, DC-8 Parts to be ID'd.

WHEN A BRAND NEW 300 TONNE AIR CANADA DC-8 AIRLINER with a 109 people on board…slams nose first into a Castlemore farmer's field in 1970…at 400mph…well, parts of that airplane are going to be driven deep into the ground.

For a very long while.

Sooner, or later, however, those shattered pieces will work their way to the surface.

Whether human or aircraft.

These are some unidentified DC-8 parts from AIR CANADA CF-TIW, tail fin 878.

CAN any airmech ID any of these?

::: OLYMPIC FLAME Passes Thru Brampton … December 18, 2009

… by torch relay… on its' way to VANCOUVER for the 2010 WINTER OLYMPICS .

55 YEARS AGO: Trans-Canada Air Lines Super Constellation CF-TGG Crashes in Brampton

FOLKS, I'M GONNA' ask you one question, and one question only.

Does this look like a good place to put a large airliner down?

For a landing??

In 2009?

Nope?

Yeah, that's what I thought.

But on December 17 in 1954, just beyond this, the boarded up Norman Breadner/Monkman farm storehouse… there were no other houses back then, only an empty farmer's field with snow on the ground, this was a great place to land!

Apparently.

So down swooped Trans-Canada Air Lines (TCAL) Lockheed Super Constellation (CF-TGG) L-1049E at 175 miles-per-hour, lights on, wheels down, landing configuration for the instrument approach for Runway 10 at Toronto-Malton airport. Returning from Tampa Bay, direct to Toronto… it's 9:32pm, local Brampton time. The large, brand spankin' new, luxurious, elegantly-designed, tri-tail Lockheed L-1049 Constellation ("Connie" to her pilots) turns slightly, and flies flawlessly, as she responds to Norman Ramsay, the TCAL pilot, at her controls.

She trusts him unconditionally.

Swoosh… touchdown.

Bang, bang, crunch, crunch… gee, this is a strange runway, pilot Norman Ramsay thought.

And no runway lights, either.

Skidding now for 2000 feet.

This can't be Toronto, Norman realizes.

It isn't. Runway 10, at Malton, is twelve miles away.

Somehow, Norman calculated Runway 10 was here, on the Breadner/Monkman farm.

As the roughed up Connie finally slows, it looks like things are actually going to be okay… when suddenly the Connie's wing tip hits a tree.

Damn luck—

What could have been a recoverable situation, now becomes a disaster.

As all pax and crew deplane safely, and without injury… the new pride of the TCAL fleet starts to burn slowly. But it's a miracle crash really. No one was killed, or even hurt.

But this airplane is now on fire, and that's aircraft fuel burning, so very quickly engulfing billows eat up the Connie's wing.

And soon the hopelessly stranded airplane burns to the ground, in the middle of that field that was posing as Runway 10.

From a distance, Brampton firefighters, locals, and the aircraft crash survivors look on, as firefighting equipment is also stranded on Chinguacousy Road, 1500 feet from the luxury airliner, with no way into the field…

The pilot, 34 year old Norman Ramsay was later found guilty of negligence by Ontario's transport department board of inquiry, and had his flying license suspended for six months.

HERE's A RECENTLY FIXED UP TCAL CONNIE: rbogash.com/Connie/connie_reunion.html


EPILOGUE

THREE and a HALF YEARS LATER, Norman now flying for Maritime Central Airways crashed a DC-4 near Issoudon, Quebec on August 11, 1957.

Flying at an altitude of 6000 feet, Norman flew his propliner directly INTO a thunderstorm.

Severe turbulence, power disruption, and finally loss of control of his DC-4 resulted in 79, passengers and crew, perishing.


© 2009 Special Projects In Research, © 2009 Paul Cardin

Brampton’s LARGEST AIR DISASTER…Flight 621

…happened right here in 1970 on an Air Canada "Stretch 8" arriving from Montreal.

AND PLENTY is afoot right now!

Follow the NOTES.

That’s it!


Well, there is MORE: homepage.mac.com/friendsofflight621/Menu2.html

On July 5, 1970 while Air Canada “California Galaxy” Flight 621 passed over the threshold of Runway 32, at Toronto International Airport, the First Officer, Donald Rowland, inadvertently deployed the speedbrakes (spoilers) while the “Stretch 8” was only 60 feet above the ground.

An excessive sink rate was the immediate result and Pratt and Whitney Engine Number 4 struck the runway, and was immediately torn off. Captain Peter Hamilton unaware of the engine loss, and the subsequent wing fire, initiated a go-around.

Airborne for three and a half minutes, CF-TIW suffered three explosions that were recorded on the CVR tapes. Engine Number 3 was then lost at this time. With the aircraft’s structural integrity finally compromised, flight could no longer be sustained. Now seven miles from the airport, CF-TIW crashed nose down, left wing high into a farmer’s field in Castlemore, Ontario (now a part of Brampton) at 400 mph, only one hundred and fifty feet from the occupied Burgsma residence.

All 109 passengers and crew perished as Flight 621 became Toronto's worst air disaster. This was also the first hull loss of a McDonnell Douglas DC-8-63 series.