FLIGHT 621 Crash Site: And so it begins…

…the process to develop the former crash site of Air Canada FLIGHT 621 where 109 passengers and crew lost their lives when their four-engine Air Canada "Stretch" DC-8 crashed into a Brampton farmer's field.

When the field has been developed, an irregular Flight 621 cemetery will be located right over the crash point (where the airplane went nose-first into the ground), a memorial gardens dedicated to the ill-fated flight for the victim's families will be in place, and a park for visitors will have been established .

Barb Winckler, FRIENDS of FLIGHT 621, walks the lower end of the site's perimeter fence.

This is a double fence which has hay bales filling in the centre?!?!

Flight 621 was a connoisseur flight of Air Canada's that flew Montreal-Toronto-Los Angeles (YUL-YYZ-LAX).

::.:. FLIGHT 621: 40th ANNIVERSARY - Two Boys, a Cat, and a Dog ::..

The Last Will and Testament of brothers Jacques and Jean Belanger

"IF WE DIE, WE GIVE…"

POUPONNE, MY CAT, I leave to Mionne Mallette.

Sports equipment to Daniel and Benoit Maillette. My typewriter to Evelyne Mallette, and my coin collection from Expo´67 to Jason Gagnon. Jacque's tape recorder to Norman Dupres. Handkerchief to Denis Perrault. Jean's Apollo XI rocket to Pierre Guertin…and so on…until all of his toys and possessions, and those of his younger brother, Jean (12), were given up to his friends and cousins.

Jacques (16) was mesmerized with the progress of aviation at the time.

The teenager knew about aviation, first hand, as his father was currently an Air Canada mechanic. So Jacques was really excited that he, indeed his whole family, would be flying on a brand new DC-8 "Stretch'…the very largest, and most advanced airliner at the time.

And yet, there was something wrong.

Did Jacques have a premonition?

Why did he think he might not return?

What did he feel?

Why did he insist on making a will, and giving it to his cousin, and best friend, Jean Mallette, just before boarding Air Canada Flight 621?

I'm sure Jacques' family made jokes about his insistence on creating a will for both him, and his brother. Their sister, Rosanne (10) did not create a will. I wonder what the Belanger family thought and said to one another…as they sat together on the ill-fated airplane, and events tragically unfolded. The knowing looks; the sad heads shaking.

Did his mother acknowledge, as mothers so often do when their own children amaze them, "Oh Jacques…you were right!"

These preceding paragraphs are only speculation but you can be sure some sort of exchange occurred.

On July 5th, 1970, at 8:10 am in the morning, Air Canada Flight 621 crashed in a farmer's field beside the West Humber, in Castlemore, Ontario nose first, left wing high…killing all 109 passengers and crew. A caged dog also perished.

And the whole Belanger family, all five of them, died together in Castlemore, 40 years ago.


Flight 621 In Memorium

Adams, Celine Fradette
Adams, Pierre J
Beaudin, Gaetan
Belanger, Mrs.
Belanger, Jacques
Belanger, Jean
Belanger, Roland
Belanger, Rosanne
Benson, Helen
Benson, Leonard
Benson, Mary
Benson, Richard
Bertrand, Ginette
Boosamra, Lynn
Boulanger, Guy
Bradshaw, Dollie
Cedilot, Robert J
Chapdeleine, Jeannine
Chapdeleine, Joanne
Chapdeleine, Mario
Charent, Jean Maurice
Clarke, Devona Olivia
Cote, Francine
Daoust, Yolande
Desmarais, Brigitte
Desmarais, G
Dicaire, Alice (Marie)
Dicaire, Gilles
Dicaire, Linda
Dicaire, Luke
Dicaire, Mark
Dion, Suzanne
Dore, Jacqueline
Earle, Lewella
Earle, Linda
Filippone, Francesco
Filippone, Linda
Filippone, Marie
Gee, Bernard
Goulet, Denise M
Grenier, Madeleine
Growse, Mrs.
Growse, Jane
Growse, Roger
Hamilton, Karen E
Hamilton, Peter Cameron
Herrmann, Ronald Alvin
Hill, Harry Gordon
Holiday, Claude
Houston, Irene Margaret
Houston, Wesley
Jakobsen, Vagn Aage
Labont, Gilles
Leclaire, Marie Rose
Leclaire, Oscar
Leduc, Henri W
Lepage, Claudette
Mailhiot, Claire Gagnon
Mailhiot, Gerald Bernard
Maitz, Gustave
Maitz, Karoline
McKettrick, Winnifred
McTague, John
Medizza, Carla
Mohammed, Dolly
Molino, Antonio
Molino, Michael (Michel)
Moore, Frederick T
Partridge, Andrea
Partridge, Carnie (Carnis) Ann
Partridge, Cyril Wayne
Phillips, Kenneth William
Poirier, Rita
Raymond, Gilles
Raymond, Martial
Robert, Aline
Robert, Georges E
Robidoux, Lionel
Rowland, Donald
Silverberg, Marci
Silverberg, Merle
Silverberg, Steven
Simon, Istvan
Simon, Mark
Smith, Dwight Lee
St. Laurent, Blanche
Stepping, Glenn Thomas
Sultan, Celia
Sultan, Jerald. M
Sultan, Robert. L
Szpakowicz, Borys
Szpakowicz, Serge
Tielens, Carmen
Tielens, Frederick
Tournovits, George
Tournovits, Soula (Athanasia)
Weinberg, Carla
Weinberg, S
Weinberg, Wendy
Whittingham, Jennifer
Whittingham, John
Whittingham, Reginald
Whybro, Mary Baker
Wieczorek, Hildegund
Witmer, Edgar
Wong, Ngar-Quon
Wong, Suzie
Wong, Wong (Mansing)
Woodward, Dallas J



© 1970 Mike Quatrale (OPP police photographer)
© Pierre Tremblay - Friends of Flight 621
© Paul Cardin - Friends of Flight 621

::: 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?

::: The Eerie, and Flight 621 .::.

You know that feelin'.

A chill down the spine.

You are alone BUT don't feel alone. A presence. Unsure what?

Strangely, it just happens sometimes when I'm doing 621 research. At home, or out in the field.

Anyways…

Rest assured… that every man-made idol humanity places his trust in, will be, thrown to the ground.

With Air Canada Flight 621, a Douglas DC-8, quite literally—

IMAGINE MY surprise, no shock! when I discovered this, last year.

A Douglas Aircraft Company (of California) ad, from the throwaway year of 1960. Proudly, and whimsically advertising their first jet airliner, the DC-8.

Raw power, folks! Fast, quiet, comfortable, dependable, and safe. Yes, safe. Rest assured, the moment you step aboard a DC-8 and enter the sky… you WILL have peace of mind.

Now, that was the hype.

The reality?

A little different with Flight 621, and many other DC-8 flights folks…

Back in the day there were "issues" with various mechanical aspects of the DC-8. A lot of incidents, accidents, and crashes were becoming the back-down-to-earth reality of this Douglas aircraft.

The Government of Canada even kept secret files on the DC-8 which can still be found in the national archives.

Through TCA and later Air Canada, which were both crown corporations, the Canadian federal government owned lots of DC-8s.

A whopping forty-four in total! Almost 10% of the entire McDonnell-Douglas production run, from 1958 through to 1972 was owned by Canadians, collectively.

And Big Brother, or the Government of Canada would later block the attempted purchase of McDonnell-Douglas DC-10s by Air Canada. The mounting evidence in the secret "8" files was a little too sobering. The "Feds" HAD had enough with Douglas, even though the DC-10's wings were made right in Toronto, right at the former Avro Canada plant!

Now, back to the ad.

Damn, it's eerie.

The ad shows an innocent blond-haired girl carrying a doll, and waving good-bye (to trusting parents).

The COLOURIZED INSET Jac Holland photo shows a similar doll found in the crash debris of Flight 621. Ironically, not even ten feet from the untouched doll was a lifeless, little, preteen blond-haired girl… amid tonnes, and tonnes, of burnt aircraft wreckage.

Age? About ten years old, I was told.

The former OPP police officer who returned with me to the crash site told me that he remembers her well. Too well.

She lay there in silence as he sadly looked down at her. Her blond hair, gently responding to a breeze, making its' way through the field.

Fifty-five minutes previous, she too, had waved good-bye.

Nobody knew it would be her last such wave.

And now, her family, would be left picking up the pieces of their personal tragedy for the rest of their lives.

“AIR CANADA 254! Do you see traffic at 1 o’clock…"

…about 4 1/2 miles???”

“Yeh, 621 has ah, crashed–“

So there it was. The pilot of an inbound Air Canada Vickers Viscount, Flight 254, who was next in the (landing) slot, right behind the ill-fated Flight 621 “Stretch” 8 (DC-8-63) confirmed that 621 had indeed crashed.

And it was in this chatter between the YYZ Tower, Departures, AC 621, and AC 254 that it all unraveled for Flight 621. And while all blame for the eventual outcome for the accident seems to fall on the First and Second Officers…that IS NOT my opinion.

If you read the almost 200 page report (half a page, of which, is pictured above), and you have attention to detail, the truth indeed rises above all the “chatter” surrounding the accident.

The truth is in the talkback.

Both then, and 33 years later when I discovered it. Additionally, a little legwork as the police say…and well…

Wait for the book, when I lay it all out, in true irrefutable fashion ~

I will give one clue, however.

Captain Peter Hamilton, a former decorated WW II RCAF Halifax bomber pilot and hero, who was shot down and captured by the Nazis, and even spent time as an POW for his country, for the duration of the war, certainly, certainly, had the deck loaded against him on that day.

Mr. Hamilton who has my deepest and heartfelt respect, tried desperately, and in vain, to save his “ship” on that horrific day and that is what makes it so much a tragedy, and not just an accident.

I am cut to the heart, and enraged, every time I evision that highly skilled, and experienced aircrew, all of them, frantically trying, trying, to turn it all around…and they could have!

They could have!

That is the bitter and tragic truth!

Yes, even after losing an engine, and even though the starboard wing was on fire. They could have. They had both the experience, and skill. These were Air Canada jetliner pilots for gosh sakes! Not just Cessna 172 weekend warrior wannabees!!

Except for one thing…critical information was denied them at the fateful (turn-it-all-around) moment, when had they most assuredly needed it.

And that made all the difference, folks……between safely landing and crashing.

When the compromised Air Canada DC-8 finally plunged earthward, the SO Rowland apologized one last time to his captain, Peter Hamilton for his error with prematurely deploying the spoilers. But Peter was already gone. It was determined that he suffered a massive heart attack just after entering the descent.

And while there is more…that too will have to wait for the book.

RIP Flight 621.