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Chief
climber
The NW edge of The Hudson Bay
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Topic Author's Original Post - May 29, 2011 - 04:05am PT
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This might be kind of remote but I had this cool old dude build me a scale model of the TCA Northstar that crashed into Slesse in December 1956 killing all 62 on board.
Eugene had to use parts from DC6 and Lancaster kits, shorten the fuselage and wings, carve and mold the correct Merlin engines and props and have special decals made to replicate the original markings on Jack Clarke's plane.
I think this might be the only model of the passenger version of this aircraft and I'm real pleased with how it turned out.
I'll try to get some better photos.
(Note the two B29s with Fat Man and Little Boy beside them)
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bmacd
Social climber
100% Canadian
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May 29, 2011 - 04:17am PT
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what about a movie ...
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Lambone
Ice climber
Ashland, Or
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May 29, 2011 - 04:23am PT
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chucks are still there too. i need to get up there for that classc North Ridge someday.
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rurprider
Trad climber
Mt. Rubidoux
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May 29, 2011 - 09:19am PT
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DMT... Nice try with the ballard. I love the ballard of the Edmond Fitzgerald.
There was a tragic crush of two USMC Grumman F6F-5s on 10,064 ft Mt. Baldy on March 2, 1949. Both pilots were killed in the accident. Same planes that escourted George Bush over Chichi Jima in WWII. Easy to find models of the Helllcat at any hobby store, or the wreckage is still there to see.
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Chief
climber
The NW edge of The Hudson Bay
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Topic Author's Reply - May 29, 2011 - 11:51am PT
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Eugene started work on the 1/72 model in October of last year and I took delivery of it a couple days ago. Eugene is a retired airline mechanic and a former member of the BCMC and was well acquainted with the story of the crash and many of the people involved in the search for and discovery of flight 810. This project was a labor of love for him and while his fee might appear sizable to some, was a veritable honorarium compared to his efforts.
I have had a fascination with Mt Slesse and the crash of flight 810 since my first trip there in winter with Don Serl and John Wittmayer back in 1980. We froze our asses off climbing the North Face Apron to the Notch in a 24 hour round trip push from our bivi.
I returned with Peder Ourom (that's Mighty's brother) and Joe Buszowski for a wild attempt on the yet unclimbed north coulour we dubbed "The Heart of Darkness" and was almost killed by icefall on a subsequent attempt.
Having had enough of Slesse in winter I third classed the NE Butress in 87 and after an initial attempt with Bary Blanchard, completed the first ascent of the east wall via the East Pillar with Greg Child in 93.
The climbing history of Slesse and the crash of flight 810 are to a degree, inseparable. Legend has it Fred Beckey never worked after visiting the mountain and climbing the NE Buttress because he found the missing money belt. Anyone who has visited the mountain can attest to seeing obvious bits of wreckage in the basin below the east face and the leftover remnants still welded into the impact site near the summit.
The pilot, Jack Clarke was a veteran of 47 bombing raids over Europe and North Africa and by all accounts, a Canadian war hero and competent pilot. It's surmised that a combination of engine failure, heavy icing and most importantly navigational error due to the primitive systems of the day were the causes of the crash.
Mount Slesse is the final resting place for 62 people and is protected as a Heritage Wreck Site. Jack Clarke's wife Vivian never remarried and her family took her ashes to Slesse after her passing. Technically, we're not even supposed to climb the East Wall much less mess with the place.
I guess the point of my interest and efforts are to bring awareness to climbers to better know this story and respect the mountain as the cemetery and grave marker for those who lost their lives on Flight 810.
For those interested in more details, I highly recommend this book.
Thanks for letting me share here.
ps. I'm using binary code instead of potatoes for the scale model of the mountain. Way less messy.
Disaster on Mount Slesse
The Story of Western Canada's Worst Air Crash
by Betty O'Keefe & Ian Macdonald
A gripping account of Western Canada's worst aviation disaster.
Book Description
Mount Slesse, a jagged 2,500-metre peak near Chilliwack BC known locally as "The Fang," lived up to its evil reputation on December 9, 1956, when Trans Canada Airlines Flight 810 slammed into it, killing all 62 aboard. For five months nobody knew what happened. Flight 810 had just disappeared into the night. Adding to the sensation was the fact that the flight carried five professional football players fresh from the CFL All Star game in Vancouver and a mystery man by the name of Kwan Song who was rumoured to be carrying a sizeable fortune in cash. Finally on May 10, 1957, a diminutive female mountaineer named Elfrida Pigou discovered the gruesome crash site, setting off a stampede of macabre treasure hunters. It wasn’t until May 25, 1995, that the BC government placed a protective zone around the debris field, declaring it a Heritage Wreck Site. To mark the fiftieth anniversary of this historic tragedy, Betty O'Keefe and Ian Macdonald have written a gripping, blow-by-blow account of western Canada’s worst aviation disaster, carefully examining its context, causes and aftermath.
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drljefe
climber
El Presidio San Augustin del Tucson
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May 29, 2011 - 01:37pm PT
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Very cool.
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R.B.
Trad climber
Land of the Lahar
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May 29, 2011 - 02:28pm PT
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10 December 1946 - A Curtiss R5C-1 Commando military transport plane, BuNo 39528, c/n 26715/CU355, (ex-USAAF 42-3582), of VMR-152, crashed into Mount Rainier's South Tahoma Glacier, killing 32 U.S. Marines.[96] Wreckage not found until July 1947.
The wreckage is still up there.
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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May 29, 2011 - 02:36pm PT
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hey there say, tamie... cheif and all...
thanks for the very interesting things you share here... more to add to the "stuff we learn at supertopo topo list" :)
*wow, tami, you sure got a lot of interesting adventures!
(yep, i knew this already from reading other post, but i just had to chip this in, due to the "fireball" story that tied-in with your "fireball-area trip" !
:(
sad as to the loss-of-life stories, but the history of the shares, is very interesting, as i said...
:)
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Caveman
climber
Cumberland Plateau
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May 29, 2011 - 05:02pm PT
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"Follow-up / safety actions:
It was recommended a.o. that pilots be encouraged to dump fuel in emergency situations."
http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19561209-1
One of four engines down, possibly on fire. Strong storms with icing conditions and the mountains beneath. Wow, scary as hell! Interesting about the fuel dump procedure. Wonder if it would have saved them.
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Chief
climber
The NW edge of The Hudson Bay
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Topic Author's Reply - May 29, 2011 - 05:44pm PT
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More photos
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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May 29, 2011 - 09:25pm PT
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I forget when I did it (76 or 77?). It was still an easy drive, thank heavens.
I mainly recall being scared spitless traversing under the hanging glacier
which was down to a murderous-looking morsel.
Then I was scared spitless on the descent traversing some 50 degree turf.
If the truth be told I probably would have gone up there sooner if I hadn't
been friends with the second ascent team. They were damn lucky they came off
as well as they did. Major kudos to the helo team. I'm afraid my memory
is still too compromised by vicariously sharing their experience to re-tell it.
Furthermore, only one of the four is still with us. An additional weird
coincidence is that Steve Marts, who was on the first ascent of the NE
Buttress with Fred and Bjornstad, was with Wickwire, Givler, and Jagerski
when the latter two fell off Mt Abbey in the Fairweather Range.
The Northstar certainly was a jinxed airplane: 4 or the 71 built crashed!
Was it just Canadian desire to assert themselves that drove them to build such
a Rube Goldberg creation? I mean, the DC-6 was a pretty damn good plane.
If it ain't broke why phuk with it?
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Fritz
Trad climber
Choss Creek, ID
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May 29, 2011 - 09:57pm PT
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Fascinating history.
Thanks Chief, and all for posting on this.
Never climbed farther north than Mt. Baker in the Cascades.
Slesse is not on my "to die for" list.
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Chief
climber
The NW edge of The Hudson Bay
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Topic Author's Reply - May 29, 2011 - 10:28pm PT
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The Northstar certainly was a jinxed airplane: 4 or the 71 built crashed!
Reilly, this comment contradicts everything I've read so far about the Northstar. Other than the loud Merlins the Northstar was apparently a stalwart and reliable aircraft, a mainstay of the aviation industry of the day flying the North Atlantic and serving as a "transcontinental workhorse". Of the four crashes you refer to, Flight 810 was largely attributed to navigational error and quite possibly a CFT (Controlled Flight into Terrain), another was the victim of a preventable mid air collision and one apparently crashed hauling armaments to rebels in Nigeria. Not sure about the fourth but will look into it.
Edit;
Was it just Canadian desire to assert themselves that drove them to build such a Rube Goldberg creation?
I'd like to know more about the details that qualified this aircraft as a "Rube Goldberg" creation and will definitely be assiduously researching this claim. Your comment on Canadian assertion is at best an odious troll.
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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May 29, 2011 - 11:01pm PT
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A cool story, and definitely an atmospheric mountain. I'd like to go back sometime.
On a side note Chief, I was supposed to go climbing with Greg at Index when you and he did that face. Apparently your offer sounded better. Can't say I blame him.
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Chief
climber
The NW edge of The Hudson Bay
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Topic Author's Reply - May 29, 2011 - 11:04pm PT
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Java and I had a great adventure.
He narrowly avoided being swept off the mountain when a snowfield sh#t out just after we'd unroped and filled our water bottles at it's base.
Our cramped night standing in our packs on a ledge not unlike the hood of a VW Bug is well chronicled in his excellent essay, "The Diadactics of Bivoucaism".
With regard to our route on the East Pillar, credit has to be given to our late friend John Stoddard who with Dennis Mullen attempted a similar line hammerless and "escaped" up left years before our ascent. RIP John.
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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May 30, 2011 - 01:10am PT
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Thanks, Perry and all - an important piece of our mountain lore. There's a full account of the crash and the eventual locating of the site in Paddy Sherman's "Cloudwalkers". 32 pages altogether, so no I won't scan and post it. Paddy was a local newspaperman from the 1950s on, an avid mountaineer, and one of the key people in the Mountain Rescue Group. Mountain-related things were reasonably well covered in The Province then - when it was still a reputable paper.
That's a lovely model, Perry. I'm trying to place the name of the fellow who made it, who you say was in the BCMC, and may ask my father.
The hypothesized crash scenario was all too common in the 1950s, in the pre-jet era. Bad weather, icing, mechanical problems, route, elevation. Rather like the crash that killed my uncle - he was navigator on a Lancaster that crashed a week before the end of the war. When I was there for a memorial five years ago, I met a woman who'd seen the crash, and said the plane had an engine on fire. They never did much of an investigation, though, and a fire isn't in the official report.
The Canadian aviation industry produced some excellent planes through the 1950s, until kneecapped by the government's cancellation of the AVRO Arrow.
Slesse is quite the alpine place, and somewhat overawes many. There is debris scattered all over the east side, mostly now lower down. Something to think about on the approach.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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May 30, 2011 - 01:37pm PT
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Any idea how many VEGA's are still on the road? Those things had a low success rate unlike the northstar.....
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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May 30, 2011 - 03:45pm PT
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What about the back seat of a AMC gremlin with a Dr. Browns chocolate soda bottle..?
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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May 30, 2011 - 05:32pm PT
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Didn't Guy and someone try Heart of Darkness, and get blanked out fairly high?
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Chief
climber
The NW edge of The Hudson Bay
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Topic Author's Reply - May 30, 2011 - 06:57pm PT
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Drifting slightly off thread, I did some extrapolating from the earlier comment re Canadian desire for assertion creating a Rube Goldberg aircraft and gave thought to the shuttle program. Two of how many shuttles down? Any bad engineering or shoddy procedures as contributing factors? I have too much respect for my southern neighbors to even suggest misguided nationalism.
Ahhh, phuk it, not worth getting into it I guess.
Heart of Darkness, scary place in bad conditions. Kind of like climbing a gun barrel.
We didn't know shite from shineola when we tried it, no avalanche training, beacons or conditions reports. Young, dumb and lucky.
Word around the campfire was that Maxim was flushed out by a slab avalanche. Don't know about Guy's effort.
It's a prize best considered in perfect winter conditions in a single push with a tough bit of dry tooling and or direct aid two thirds of the way to The Notch. Not worth dying for though.
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