Mount Benson Plane Crash

At the time—Oct. 1, 1951—it was the worst aviation accident in British Columbia history. It’s now the 18th which shows you how far we’ve come in 70 years.

Although I’ve always been fascinated by old aircraft and plane wrecks are a natural extension of that interest, I’ve only managed to get to several over the years.

The one on Nanaimo’s Mount Benson is the one that has intrigued me most of all. I first head of it as a kid and was reminded of it in the mid-1970s as I came out of a north Nanaimo department store and saw the sun glinting on something on the southwest face of Mount Benson.

It looked silver, like some kind of monument, which I took it to be. When I asked someone about it, he replied that it was a memorial to a plane wreck, the one that had intrigued me for years.

Turns out he was wrong: All these years later, there is no memorial to the 26 people who died in the crash of a Queen Charlotte Airlines Canso.

Fast-forward to last June when I was offered a guided tour to the wreck site. Of course, I jumped at the opportunity.

I tell you allow about it in next week’s Cowichan Chronicles...

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