by Phil Egan
Those of us in our late 60s or early 70s have few fond memories of November, 1963: especially its last two Fridays.
On November 22nd, I was writing exams at St. Patrick’s High School in Sarnia. It wasn’t until our exams were over about 3 p.m. that the teachers broke the news. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, had hours before been assassinated in Dallas.
I remember running all the way home to turn on the television.
On Sunday morning, as Kennedy’s closed casket lay in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol building, I watched Kennedy’s assassin being slain in the basement of the Dallas jail.
Monday was Kennedy’s unforgettable funeral, with its rolling caisson, the haunting sound of the muffled drums, and the march to Arlington Cemetery.
By the end of that week, we felt like we had lived through a nightmare, and things were just starting to get back to normal. But for Sarnia, the night of Friday, November 29, 1963 would be another night of unimaginable sorrow for dozens of families across the city.
In Montreal that evening, traffic congestion was noticeably worse than normal, and it was raining hard. At Montreal’s Dorval Airport, Trans Canada Flight 831 was being held for a Murray Hill bus carrying a number of the 119 passengers booked on the Montreal to Toronto flight. The bus made it, late, and the doors of the Douglas DC-8 closed. Eight passengers, still hung up in traffic, missed the flight.
The aircraft, with only 2,174 hours on its airframe, was practically brand new. At 6:28 p.m., the aircraft began its takeoff roll on runway 06R. The precipitation had lessened, but it was still rainy and foggy, with a visibility of four miles. The flight was given instructions to report passing 3,000 feet, and 7,000 feet from the climb-out from Dorval airport. It did as instructed, acknowledging a clearance for a left-hand turn at St. Eustache.
This was the last radio contact received from TCA 831. What happened next was horrific.
People in the streets of the little lower Laurentian town of St. Therese-de-Blainville recall seeing a flaming red streak in the sky, rapidly plummeting to earth. At 6:33 p.m. Flight 831 hit the ground at a speed estimated at an appalling 870 m.p.h. It thundered into the soggy forest, tearing a hole six feet deep and 150 feet wide.
People who heard the aircraft hit the ground said they thought the world was ending. A police officer reported that the impact actually lifted his cruiser off the ground, about a mile away. Every window within a kilometre shattered.
First responders on the scene had to shoulder their way through 100 metres of brush from the highway to reach the ghastly scene. An immense fire burned in the pit despite the rain. The force of the violent crash had virtually disintegrated both the aircraft and the 118 souls aboard; 111 passengers and seven crew. Body parts and shreds of clothing hung from the flaming trees. It was like a scene straight out of Dante’s Inferno.
Five Polymer executives from Sarnia were aboard TCA Flight 831. These included Theodore Dunfield, 36, supervisor of the latex division; J. Keith Head, 34, a chemist’s assistant; Hendrik Smit, 33, chemist; Tom Murray, 47, placement supervisor; and Phil Lewis, 39, technical supervisor in the petrochemicals department.
The news of their loss hit their families, their friends, and the Polymer Corporation like a bomb. Up to that date, it was the worst air disaster in Canadian history. To this day, it is still third on the list.
The damage to the aircraft was too devastating for Trans Canada Airlines, the forerunner of Air Canada, to do anything but speculate on the cause. But major changes followed in its wake.
At Polymer, and across the Chemical Valley, instructions were issued forbidding multiple company executives from travelling on the same aircraft. In the airline industry, black box voice and data recorders were added to all Canadian commercial aircraft.
One traditional change, however, was never made. Airlines usually retire flight numbers following a fatality. But Air Canada Flight 831 still operates today, from Geneva to Toronto.
It includes a stop in Montreal, at the same airport from which its ill-fated predecessor took flight, briefly, fifty-three years ago.