Disaster on Mount Benson Now All But Forgotten
At the time—Oct. 1, 1951—the crash of a Queen Charlotte Airlines Canso on Nanaimo’s Mount Benson 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 a few over the years.
The one on Mount Benson, six miles west of Nanaimo, is the one that has intrigued me most of all. I first heard 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 southeast 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.
He was wrong: All these years later, there is no memorial on Mount Benson to honour the 23 people who died in the crash of the twin-engine amphibian owned by Queen Charlotte Airlines although I’m told there’s a collective headstone in the Nanaimo Cemetery.
Fast-forward to last June when I was offered a guided tour to the wreck site. Of course, I jumped at the opportunity.
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For years a classic Canso amphibian was parked at the Nanaimo Airport, right beside the Island Highway, and caught my attention every time I drove by. It has since been sold and has gone elsewhere, hopefully to a new career or, even, better, restoration. --Photo courtesy of Ambrose Knobel
NANAIMO AIR CRASH KILLS 23
Kemano Workers Die as Q.C.A. Plane Hits Mount Benson
Says Wreck Awful Mess
Such were the grim headlines of The Daily Colonist on the morning of Oct. 18, 1951.
23 Die In B.C.’s Worst Air Crash; Two Investigations Launched
QCA Plane Hits Mountain, Burns
So said the Vancouver Sun.
(Because the online version of the Oct. 18, 1951 Colonist is so faded as to be all but unreadable, and the Nanaimo Free Press isn’t available online, I’m using the Sun as my source. Fortunately, the Vancouver daily, which had a senior reporter on the scene within hours, gives excellent coverage of this now mostly forgotten tragedy. As a bonus, its subscription website is very operator friendly.)
Said to have occurred at the 1800-foot level of the north face of 3200-foot Mount Benson, the crash site posed an immediate challenge to, first, hopeful rescuers, then to those tasked with recovering the bodies and investigating the cause of the accident. Access was all but limited to those on-foot as only a few loggers’ “cat” trails meandered across the lower reaches of the mountain and much of the area had been swept by fire the previous year.
First to reach the site was Les Meredith of East Wellington who arrived as the tail section continued to burn so fiercely that he couldn’t approach it. Earlier, at suppertime, he’d been getting water at a neighbour’s when he heard a plane circling overhead. He couldn’t see it but, “It didn’t sound right, as though the engine [sic] was missing.”
Another view of the Canso at the Nanaimo Airport. --Photo courtesy of Ambrose Knobel
“That plane won’t get very far,” he told his neighbour.
Seconds later, he heard an explosion and saw a ball of flame in the direction of Mount Benson. RCMP were flooded with phone calls as many others reported hearing a crash and fire. All off-duty officers and Civil Defence workers were immediately called in. When it became apparent that all aboard had been killed, probably instantly, the grim work of hauling bodies down the mountain to a temporary morgue set up on Kirkpatrick Road, off Jingle Pot Road (today’s Witchcraft Lake Regional Park) was begun.
It was a grim, even “ghastly” sight that greeted those who first reached the crash scene after three hours of brutal, uphill bushwhacking. The ex-RCAF twin engine patrol bomber, converted to carrying passengers, had “exploded like a bomb,” in the words of Sun staff reporter Clem Russell who was a member of the would-be rescue party that “hacked, climbed and slithered its way in the darkness” to the scene.
“We found nothing but the smashed and smouldering bodies of six of the victims. Our flashlights could find no trace of the other 17 victims in the eerie darkness and driving rain.”
Four separate search parties were able to reach the wreckage thanks in part to the light of burning trees, but the precipitous slopes and the pervading darkness made immediate recovery of any bodies impossible until the morning. By then, many of the searchers had made several ascents and descents.
Russell accompanied RCMP Constable Gordon Graham behind another, larger party of RCMP and Civil Defence members led by Constables George Brassard and Bob Gilday. They had to climb the faces of five rock bluffs in heavy mist in an almost vertical ascent through salal, bracken and burnt-over slash.
Constable Brassard seriously cut his hand when he slipped against a jagged piece of aluminum lying by a broken wing float.
TW taking a photo of some of the Canso wreckage on Mount Benson.
The Canso had struck between the ragged edges of a forest fire which had swept the mountain the year before. What greeted reporter Russell and others was the stuff of nightmares: “The plane was blown to pieces when it thundered into the sheer rock face. Fragments of the plane and bodies were scattered over 200 yards.
“The tail assembly was poised on the lip of a sheer 80-foot drop. When I arrived there was nothing left of it but a charred, ribbed skeleton outlined by flames.
“A red bedroom slipper, not even soiled by a grease spot, was lying beside a shattered wing. Nearby were two pulp magazines, their slick covers glossed over by a heavy night dew.
“The body of a man lay with the head on a carbon dioxide fire extinguisher. Farther away, where a wing was resting against a snag, a charred body was huddled, one logging-booted foot projecting through the undergrowth. Another man’s head protruded through a cabin window.”
Anxious not to step on concealed bodies, searchers gingerly made their way with nothing but their flashlights and the eerie glow of burning trees. A glint of light on something on the ground proved to be an engineer’s micrometer. Also scattered in the undergrowth were union documents, some of them authorizing deduction of dues by the aluminum company’s main contractor.
By this time many of their battery-powered flashlights were beginning to fade—almost a blessing, thought Russell, as the dimness “softened the horrible scene around us”.
Not even two large snags that burned for hours “like a giant funeral pyre” and scorched a quarter of an acre did much to illuminate the bulk of the wreckage which covered more than 100 square feet, although smaller pieces were scattered over 600 feet.
Russell was taking a photo of the tail assembly when a blazing snag collapsed and showered him with burning debris. “I jumped back, holding my camera and flashlight in one hand and my glasses disappeared over the ledge on which I was standing.”
The Canso, Vancouver-bound from Kitimat via Port Hardy, had been carrying a three-man crew and 20 passengers, several of them workers from the Aluminum Company of Canada’s Kitimat (Kemano) project. As many Nanaimo residents sat down to their dinners that Wednesday evening of October 17, at 6:48 p.m., seven minutes before striking Mount Benson head-on, Capt. Douglas D. McQueen had radioed his position to Vancouver Airport.
Even before hearing a crash, witnesses had been alarmed by a plane flying “so low that it barely missed a cluster of high tension wires at the B.C. Power Commission sub-station” on Jingle Pot Road. Herb Addison, who was working at the power station at the base of Mount Brenton, said the plane circled twice and narrowly missed the power lines. Seconds after the Canso’s lights vanished in the overcast, there was a brilliant flash, he said.
Twenty-two of the 23 known dead were: Douglas Duncan McQueen, pilot, 34; Jaginder Singh Johl, 23, co-pilot; Ray Williams, crew member, all of Vancouver.
The passengers who were employed by Kitimat Constructors were: Eric Melanson, 37, chief project engineer, Vancouver; William E.B. Perry, 36, single, Winnipeg; Charles Morin, married no children, Vancouver; A. Rowand, engineering consultant, Edmonton. John W. Watson, Cowichan Lake, 38, comptroller, married two children; James McDonnell, 20, chokerman, single, Vancouver.
The other passengers were K. Krug, 40, married, Vancouver; P. Brisson, 46, thought to be from Ontario; J. Dagneault, 30, Vancouver; Cyril Depauw, 53, married, Mission; G. Graham, 30, Victoria; R. McFadyn, 25, cook, Vancouver; J. Redding, New Westminster; T. Bone, 52, Vancouver; J.A. Campbell, married, chief mechanical superintendent, Washington; H.T. Comerford, Vancouver; D. Gulliman, Burnaby; Michael Carney, 33, union business agent, Vancouver; J.B. Ferguson, welder, Parksville.
Recovery of the bodies, begun late the next day, had required CD workers to clear a pathway to the site, a task that had taken hours because trucks couldn’t get near. Despite the unfriendly terrain, an estimated 30 morbidly curious had already made the strenuous hike, and rumours were flying as to the cause of the crash.
One theory was that Pilot McQueen had strayed off course after passing Comox because of poor weather (a mix of fog, rain and sleet) and because the Canso’s navigation equipment failed to pick up the Vancouver Airport radio beam.
As it was explained in layman’s terms, “At Lantzville, near Nanaimo, the Comox beam crosses the Vancouver beam which the plane would have followed into Vancouver. Apparently the pilot missed the beam intersection.”
Adding to the mystery was McQueen’s radio message, less than eight minutes before the crash, that he was on course. (Not to mention a witness’s observation than an engine “seemed to be missing,” i.e. out of tune. Perhaps, as others reported that the plane circled twice, just missing the power lines each time, the engines were, in fact, straining as a disconcerted McQueen struggled to regain altitude?)
The Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives gives us the official verdict:
“Circumstances: The aircraft left Kildala [Kitimat] at 1532 [3:32 P.M.] bound for Vancouver carrying twenty passengers and a crew of three. At 17:33 [5:33] the aircraft reported over Sullivan Bay and gave its ETA Vancouver as 1840 [6:40]. At 1825 [6:25] the ETA Vancouver was revised to 1903 [7:03] on account of strong southeast winds. The next and last radio transmission received was at 1848 [6:48] when the aircraft reported it was 20 miles west of Vancouver at 2,000 feet and requested clearance to the tower frequency. At approximately 1855 hours [6:55] the aircraft crashed into Mount Benson. All occupants were killed and the aircraft was destroyed.
“Probable Cause: The probable cause of this accident was the continuance of the flight VFR [Visual Flight Rules] at night under conditions of restricted visibility. Whilst it cannot be determined conclusively, it is possible that through a navigation error the pilot mistook Nanaimo for Vancouver. This may have been precipitated by inadequate pre-flight preparation in that the latest Meteorolgical Information was not obtained by the pilot before taking off on the south bound flight.”
It was then pointed out that the Mount Benson disaster was the Queen Charlotte Airlines’ second major crash in less than three months, a QCA Norseman with seven persons aboard having disappeared in August during a short flight from Muchalat Arm on the Island’s west coast. At the time of the Canso wreck, no trace had been found of the Norseman or those on board.
There had been seven other air crashes in B.C. and Alaska in the previous eight months of 1951, with a total loss of 62 lives. Coincidentally, two of those crashes involved another Norseman and another Canso.
In 1988, in his best selling memoir, The Accidental Airline: Spilsbury’s QCA, QCA founder Jim Spilsbury recounted the sad story of Flight 102-17. Thirty-seven years after the tragedy he admitted that neither Capt. Douglas McQueen nor Canso CF-FOQ were certified for night flying, that McQueen, who’d departed late from Kitimat at a time of early seasonal darkness, had twice before broken company (and federal aviation) rules by flying visually at night. The first time, Spilsbury had threatened to suspend him but was dissuaded because McQueen was highly regarded by the company’s other pilots who’d have resented his being reprimanded.
This wasn’t the case with McQueen’s previous flight engineer who’d been so unnerved by his disregard for weather and flying blind that he’d quit his job rather than continue to fly with him. Spilsbury wrote that he was going to discipline McQueen for again violating the Visual Flight Rule on this latest and last run to Vancouver—but too late as it turned out.
(On the scene the morning after the crash, Spilsbury had interviewed some of those who’d heard the plane, a crash and seen a flash. A second witness noted that the Canso appeared to have been having engine trouble but this has never been confirmed officially.)
Disastrous Flight 102-17 that took 23 lives continued to haunt Queen Charlotte Airlines in its final struggles to survive as an independent regional airline. Not to mention the victims’ families and friends.
In a footnote, the Sun noted that 37-year-old architect Eric Melanson, the father of five children, was on his way home after working two months as head of the mega Kemano project. Ironically, he’d been both a critic and a supporter of the QCA’s passenger service, having lobbied his employers to build a proper landing ramp at Kitimat for the company’s Cansos; this would have allowed them to expedite arrivals and departures, to the benefit of schedules and passengers.
It was also noted that co-pilot Jagindar Singh Johl, of Lulu Island, had distinguished himself seven months earlier when his QCA plane with 18 aboard was forced down in Johnstone Straits in a freezing gale. To keep the damaged plane from rolling over into the sea, he’d stood on a wingtip in an icy spray while his hands froze and blistered to twice their normal size: “Passengers and crew who watched Johl suffer great pain in silence...to save them, praised his great fortitude.”
If it strikes some readers that a wartime patrol bomber such as the Canso, the Canadian version of the American PBY, or Catalina, should have been converted to carrying passengers, it was almost commonplace. The Second World War had ended just six years before; thousands of surplus aircraft of all types and sizes were converted for peacetime uses. Among them was Queen Charlotte Airline’s two-engine, amphibious Canadian Vickers PBV-1 Canso. The CF-FOQ, as she was registered, was just 10 years old.
Many of you will know that, for years, from the 1960s until well into the ‘90s, Cansos were used as air tankers for fighting forest fires, much like the better-known (here in B.C.) Martin Mars behemoths. Many a time, while living at Cherry Point, Cobble Hill, I was thrilled to watch them pass directly overhead at a low altitude during work-up trials for another firefighting season. I can see and hear those purring twin engines now...
FINALE: Life, of course, goes on. The day after the Sun’s front-page spread on the Mount Benson tragedy, it was already making way for late-breaking news. In this case, it was much more upbeat: the visit to B.C. by Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip.
Which brings me to telling you of my achieving an almost lifelong desire to visit the wreck site, last June. I had interviewed several people over the years who’d been there; some had even drawn me maps. But no one had used GPS so, no coordinates, just crude drawings and guesstimated distances.
What with everything else going on, I never attempted to follow up.
My long lusted-for opportunity finally came this spring thanks to Nanaimo historian and former president of the Nanaimo Historical Society Darrell Ohs who put me in touch with his friend, Ambrose Knobel. A retired machinist, Ambrose hikes Mount Benson regularly for the exercise and the panoramic views of Georgia Strait and the snow-capped mainland. In the course of which he’d noticed rusting pieces of metal, invisible to most hikers because of the undergrowth, on both sides of the trail. He graciously agreed to show me.
And the rest, as they say, is history. We met in Mount Benson Park and hiked for about half an hour along a well-used trail that leads to Benson’s second summit—the one that claimed Canso CF-COQ. There in the salal immediately beside the trail, just as Ambrose had promised, I saw what I took to be pieces of the amphibian’s undercarriage. Directly above were more pieces of the wheel struts and some miscellaneous bits and bites that someone had respectfully gathered into a small pile.
Whatever remains of the bulk of the aircraft had to be higher up the almost sheer mountain face. What we were seeing, I surmised, had sheered off the Canso in the first few seconds of her impact, likely by contact with trees.
On a higher ledge I saw more, smaller pieces but any remains of the fuselage, the tail section or the engines will have to await my next visit in the spring. By all accounts, the Canso struck hard, even under full power if Capt. McQueen, having had such a close call with the power lines, was trying to regain altitude. It then bounced 200 feet down the steep rock face where it broke into pieces and burst into flame.
I want to see whatever there is to see; don’t ask me why.
And I’m going to talk to Darrell again about there not being a memorial to the lost 23 passengers and crew of Canso CF-FOQ. Even a small cairn and plaque in Mount Benson Park would work handily. It might give hikers something to think about besides the scenery when they’re walking right through the lower edge of a debris field that marks the site of one of British Columbia’s worst air tragedies.
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