Into Grim Air (Comment to Author)
From: Ron Foreman [ron@ronforeman.com]
Sent: August 7, 2005 2:59 PM
To: ‘ibrown@globeandmail.com’
Cc: Barbara Foreman (light.wave@shaw.ca)
Subject: Aug 6 - July 1970 Air Canada crash
Hi Ian,
I enjoyed your article but I think the crash occurred on a Sunday not a Monday.
I was living in Montreal and my sister was flying to British Columbia (where she has been ever since.) I think her ticket allowed her to embark from either Montréal or Toronto so when she was offered a lift to Toronto a few days before with friends she took it. However she forgot her ticket at home and asked me to go to the airport and make arrangements to replace it. I was at the Air Canada ticket counter in Dorval airport on that beautiful sunny Sunday morning, July 5, 1970. I assume that I was surrounded by the passengers and crew who boarded that flight.
I went home and played a game of softball with my buddies in Kirkland and came home to hear the awful news.
Some other tidbits about this accident:
Pete Henderson, the pilot, was a member of the Beaconsfield Golf Club.
Walter Cronkite quoted the line from the black box, “Sorry Pete†on the CBS evening news.
There is a monument to several of the victims in Mt. Pleasant Cemetery in Toronto. Many were families with young children on their way to LA, perhaps to Disneyland.
I believe that as a result of this accident aircraft were subsequently made so that the spoilers cannot be deployed until the aircraft is on the ground.
My former father-in-law, and aeronautical engineer, always said he would prefer to fly in bad weather; the crew was more alert.
Parts of wreckage and human remains continue to work their way to the surface of the field where the crash occurred even today.
Sincerely
Ron Foreman
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