CHAPTER 7 The RCMP and Flight 621

s Sterling Moore and I headed out from our apartment on Green AValley Road in ’s affluent Hogg’s Hollow for a day of fishing in the Muskokas, Gordon Lightfoot’s song 'In the Early Morning Rain’ was playing on the car radio. The sun hung as a red orb in an early-morning summer sky. It was foretelling a clear but hot day ahead. My work partner and I made a stop at the Airport Shell Station in Malton to gas up. We both worked shifts at the Old Malton Airport as part of a contingent of RCMP officers stationed there. Our duties were varied, but security of a federal property, dealing with immigration and customs issues, and traffic control topped the list. That morning dawned as a beautiful clear and sunny July day, the first of three days of well-deserved leave. After getting gas and talking to the people at the service centre, we exited the complex. We planned to head north by backtracking along the 401 East to the 400 exit, then north towards Barrie. It was approximately 8:00 a.m., July 5th, 1970. We had not travelled any more than a few hundred feet when we were stopped by our duty corporal, Corporal Marshall, who had seen us leaving the gas station. He had the lights of the police car flashing, the siren blaring. What was going on? That question was answered instantaneously when he came to the driver’s side window of our car and asked us to pull it off the road and come with him. There was some urgency in his voice for sure. We wondered what would take him out of the airport that early in the morning. We parked our car in haste and joined him in the police car. He then told us that a plane had crashed north of Malton and we were needed. He told us the tower said it was an Air Canada stretch 8 (DC 8) inbound from . "That's all I know," he told us. "Keep your eyes peeled for any sign of the crash site.” The conversation among the three of us was confused and anxious. What were we going to see? A few more miles up a short secondary road we all noticed smoke. In a minute or two we were at the end of a

- 87 - long dirt driveway, which led to a farmhouse. Not far from the house black smoke was bellowing up from the ground. The corporal was hesitant at first to drive up to the site where the smoke was coming from, some three hundred yards away, so we told him to park the car on an angle to block the road and we would walk the rest of the way. This he did and soon joined us. The three of us unintentionally were to become the first witnesses to a most horrific accident—the first major airline crash any of us had ever seen, and speaking for myself, hopefully the last. The closer we got to the site, the more pungent the air became, with a very strong smell of what appeared to be kerosene. We later learned it was jet fuel. It seemed to cover everything including the dirt driveway itself. We looked everywhere for a plane or some semblance of a plane—a wing, a tail, an engine—anything we could readily recognize, but there was nothing. We concluded at first that the plane must have crashed in another location and the area we were now looking at was just a small section of the overall event.

The hole and proximity to the farmhouse. Courtesy: The Guardian

As we slowed our pace, we discussed the close proximity of the farmhouse, noting it was lucky for anyone inside that the plane went down in another location. If it had crashed here, all inside would surely have been killed. But we were soon to discover that it had, in fact, crashed right next to that house in what we could make out to be sort of a small garden bordered by a field. The whole scene was

- 88 - beyond eerie; there was no sound, and just a wisp of black smoke coming up out of the ground. If people lived in that house, they were lucky indeed. We then saw a few dazed people on the front step. We tried to make contact but they did not acknowledge our presence. We quickly realized, however, that they were residents of the farmhouse and not part of the charnel house scene that now lay before us. Getting even closer, we could see that the smoke was coming up out of a large, black hole. Where was the plane? “Maybe it's in that hole," the corporal said, as we searched each other’s faces for answers. "No way could a 'stretch 8' fit into such a small area,” I said. So to satisfy our curiosity even further the corporal said he would go back to the police car and use the special Dept. of Transport radio we had onboard to call the tower back at the airport. "There must be another explanation," he said, "and if so we need to find out what it is if we hope to help anyone this morning.” With that, he rushed back to the police car; we stayed behind and began to survey the scene.

Author in uniform with his sister Barbara taken a day before the crash. Courtesy: Robert MacKinnon

I walked up to the edge of the hole and thought I could make out a section of undercarriage but was not sure. My partner hollered, breaking the eerie silence, that he found what looked like an aircraft tire. That did it. We began to look at the site from a different perspective. Could this small area actually be the entire crash site and, if so, where were the passengers and crew and where was the plane? In actual fact, the plane was all around us. We just could not see it.

- 89 - Corporal Marshall quickly returned from the police car stating the all-too-obvious reality: “The tower says this is the crash site, one engine is back on the tarmac so our job here is to help anyone we can without destroying evidence in the process." So we all looked around for someone, anyone, to help but there was no one. Had they sought shelter in the farmhouse? Were there any people from the plane in the farmhouse? Then a macabre feeling swept over the three of us as the reality began to sink in: was everyone onboard killed and are we standing among them unseen? We were. The colour red caught my eye from high in a tree near the farmhouse. It looked like a distress flag, but in reality it was a dress, flying in the gentle breeze that now blew over the site. The closer I got to it from ground level, I more I could make out that it was a stewardess’s uniform dress, still, it seemed, in perfect condition. Then other less obvious items began to make themselves visible. I walked on something soft but at first glance could not make it out. One of the others shouted out from across the other side of the hole: “We have body parts here. At least I think that is what they are.” In only a few minutes, we went from wondering if this was the main crash site to realizing with horror that it was. The whole thing sent a cold shiver down my spine as I expect it did my two fellow officers on the scene with me that day. One asked again, “Where are all the passengers? They must be around here somewhere.” As we quickly discovered, they were—in small pieces spread around the crash site, in the trees and buried with what was left of the plane in that hole. One hundred and nine people in all. We immediately came together to discuss the realization that what lay in front of us and under our feet was in fact the entire remains of Air Canada flight 621, its passengers and crew. It was the complete package of destruction and death, except for one engine that lay back on the tarmac and what the tower’s last report indicated was one of the wings that broke off when the plane banked hard trying to return to the airport. This final point I have never had proven as fact. In reality the three of us were in

- 90 - some sort of private shock, some sort of private hell with the smell of jet fuel and death all around. We stood there in silence, near that smoking, gaping hole, in a strange state of altered consciousness. We all seemed to realize that life so precious not an hour earlier had been snuffed out in unthinkable horror. The sound of sirens off in the distance brought us back to reality in both time and place. If what we were looking at was actually reality, it was a cruel one beyond human belief. We knew many officials would be on their way to investigate the crash, look for survivors if any, but most importantly, secure the site. We turned and headed back toward our police car and some semblance of life as we knew it before we began our walk up this road not less than twenty minutes previous. Even before we reached the patrol car with its single-dome roof light still flashing red, emergency vehicles from the airport and the surrounding communities were racing up the road toward us. The sounds of urgency coming from their various alarms and sirens screaming to high heaven, in a surrounding that now seemed so out of place to us as mortal men, was unnerving. We watched them approach in a cloud of dust that made it evident we had to quit the area. We had to make way for the experts. On the way back to our car, we were asked by Corporal Marshall if we would take the other police car parked outside our office in the basement area of the airport terminal and proceed to the tarmac. He then instructed us to stand guard over the engine that belonged to flight AC 621. As he explained, it now lay abandoned inside the airport proper near runway 32 and he suspected it would be a very important part in any future investigation. He also told us to make a note of the day’s events because if we were ever called to testify, it would be best to have a clear recollection. As it turned out, we were never called by any authority to do so. After signing in with the duty constable, we were given the car keys and in a minute or so found ourselves calling the tower to get official clearance to enter and travel over the ramp and onto the tarmac. Before we got to the engine, someone in the tower called back and asked if we were the RCMP members first on scene at the crash. We said:

- 91 - “Our movement as members outside airport property is confidential”. He asked no more questions but most likely knew we were the members onsite that morning. We left it at that and soon began to examine the engine. We looked at the engine from the car, then looked for an area of first impact on the runway and quickly found it along with other small bits of debris. We were careful not to disturb anything and stood guard there for maybe half an hour before Department of Transport officials arrived on the scene. We left the runway area and checked out with the duty constable. As we drove back to our apartment east along the 401, it all seemed to be a dream. Did we really see what we saw? As cars passed us with passengers going about their daily routines, little did they know that only a few hours earlier and not far away 109 people, in an instant, lost their lives. It was all so surreal. Lately we hear a lot about people suffering from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). These people witnessed or were participants in horrific events in a war zone or at major accident scenes, or acts of terrorists such as the horror of 9/11. For months we never talked about our brief interaction with the crash site of Air Canada Flight 621. In my case, it crept into my mind off and on, but mostly came to haunt me in my dreams. Did I, or all of us, suffer from a mild form of PTSD? If we did not, we had the right to because the initial shock we suffered that day was real, so to me PTSD is real. How could it not be? This was further exacerbated when in time I found out that I had previously met one of the crew lost on 621. As was our usual practice, a few of my work mates and I would go to the Skyline Hotel off Dixon Road very near the airport and have a beer or two at the lounge on top of the building, Runway 23. Here we met many Air Canada employees and one of them was a Flight 621 crew member. If I suffered any sort of PTSD from this tragedy and the many other horrific scenes I witnessed in my now 70 years, how did it affect my life going forward? Looking back, I often wonder. For years I would awake from a deep sleep, sweating and very agitated. The crash scene

- 92 - was always the cause. I would find myself in these vivid dreamscapes23 standing almost over that black smoking hole listening to voices, the voices of the dead. Eventually they would come up out of that hole talking to each other as if nothing had happened. They would seem to head off in single file to enter the farmhouse. It made me wonder in my dream how they could all fit into such a small building. They seemed happy. Each time I was awakened by the sound of sirens, but the dream content remained as clear as though the dream were not an illusion but some real-world tragic event. I am not an overly religious man prone to belief in the unknown. However, I often wondered if the dream was of some consequence to me as a coping mechanism. Was the small farmhouse representative of heaven or a pathway to heaven for those poor souls lost on Air Canada flight 621? I will leave those questions to be answered by people much more enlightened than myself. I can say the event had real meaning for me. Many years later, I discussed this with my father, a man of pure Highland Scottish heritage. He told me I may have the gift of what our ancestors called ‘the second sight’—the ability to look back in time at some pivotal event or into the future to see an event that was yet to happen. The transcript of the cockpit recording (conversation between the captain and first officer of Flight 621 just minutes before landing) explains what happened that day to cause a perfectly good but now compromised airplane actually to take off from the safety of a runway. The following is part of the public record based on the findings of the investigation. Courtesy: www.tailstrike.com

The deadliest accident at Toronto Pearson International Airport took place on July 5, 1970, when Air Canada Flight 621, a Douglas DC-8 registered CF-TIW, was flying on a Montreal-Toronto- route. Captain Peter Hamilton and First Officer Donald Rowland had flown on various flights together before, and had an ongoing discussion on when to arm the spoilers. They both agreed they did not like arming them at the beginning

23 dreamscapes: Indigenous Peoples term for dreams.

- 93 - of the final approach, fearing it could lead to an inadvertent spoiler deployment. The captain preferred arming them on the ground, while the copilot preferred arming them during the flare. The flare is executed just above the runway, causing the plane's nose to rotate up. That ensures the nose wheel does not contact the runway first, and it also reduces the rate of descent so that the main wheels will not impact the runway too hard. The thrust of the engines is reduced to idle at the same time, causing the speed of the plane to slow significantly. The pilots made an agreement that, when the captain was piloting the aircraft, the first officer would arm the spoilers on the ground, as the captain preferred, and when the first officer was piloting the aircraft, the captain would arm them on the flare as the copilot preferred.

An Air Canada DC-8, similar to the one flown in Air Canada Flight 621. In this particular instance, however, the captain was piloting the landing and said: "All right. Give them to me on the flare. I have given up." Courtesy: The Brampton Guardian

This was not their usual routine. Sixty feet from the runway, the captain began to reduce power in preparation for the flare and said "Okay" to the first officer. The first officer immediately armed and deployed the spoilers. The aircraft began to sink heavily and the captain, realizing what had happened, pulled back on the control column and applied full throttle to all four engines. The nose lifted, butthe aircraft continued to sink, hitting the runway with enough force that the number four engine and pylon broke off from the wing. Realizing what he had done, the first officer began

- 94 - apologizing to the captain. The aircraft eventually managed to lift off for a go-around, but the lost fourth engine had torn off a piece of the lower wing plating and the aircraft was now trailing fuel, which ignited. The first officer requested a second landing attempt on the same runway but was told it was closed due to debris and was directed to another runway. Two and a half minutes after the initial collision, the outboard section of the right wing above engine number four exploded, causing parts of the wing to break off. Six seconds after this explosion, another explosion occurred in the area of the number three engine, causing the pylon and engine to both break off and fall to the ground in flames. Six and a half seconds after the second explosion, another explosion occurred, destroying most of the right wing, including the wing tip. The aircraft then went into a violent nose dive, striking the ground at a high velocity and killing all 100 passengers and the nine crew members onboard. Wreckage, bodies, bits of clothing and women's pocketbooks were strewn for more than 100 yards beyond the impact spot. The plane dug a furrow 8 or 10 feet deep, less than 200 feet from a house in which a family of 10 persons lived. The mishap was the first Air Canada accident involving fatalities since November, 1963, when another DC- 8, Flight 831, also bound from Montreal to Toronto, crashed with a loss of 118 lives. Recovery and identification of bodies of Flight 621 proceeded slowly. More than 20 of the passengers were United States citizens, all of them listed as being from Southern California."

Wreckage and impact crater near farm house. Courtesy: The Brampton Guardian

- 95 - CHAPTER 15 The Pirate Shipyard

he French garrison stationed at Fortress Louisbourg and the French Tnavy, circa mid- to late 18th century, used the Mira River system, not just to supply the needs of the fortress, but also to maintain its small fleet of coastal vessels. These consisted of small fishing vessels and other all-purpose vessels called shallops, or in French, chaloupes. The shallop could measure thirty feet in length, be equipped with oars and one or two masts with sails. Such small boats were often armed with one or two small cannon. These small vessels were a common sight on the Mira River during the 18th century. A century two or before this, other sailors from many different countries used small coastal craft to navigate not just the Mira River but the many rivers that ran inland from the coast. They also needed a place to haul out their vessels for an inspection below the water line and to conduct hull maintenance, often called careening. This required that a ship be hauled out of the water at a place large enough to lay the vessel on its side in order to clean and repair it. There was just such a place in Louisbourg Harbour called Careening Point; however, it was not ideal, as ships laid out in such a fashion could be caught onshore and taken by the enemy in times of conflict. An alternate location was needed, close to the Fortress yet secure enough to carry out the hauling out of these small ships. Such a place was found near the mouth of the Mira River. Long before the French used the Mira River to any extent, the Basque, Spanish and Bristol fishing fleets found it a convenient water route for many different reasons. Before being renamed the Mira River, it was known as St. Mary’s River. Perhaps the most important benefit of the river was its function as a secure and secret location to anchor and repair ships. It was close to English Harbour, renamed Louisbourg Harbour by the French after 1712, and could be easily reached by half a day’s journey overland from Louisbourg. After 1712 and the founding of Fortress Louisburg, the French began to build military roads

- 201 - from the fort to the Mira River both for security as well as a second transportation route in the event that the harbour was blockaded by an enemy. Two other aspects of the Mira River appealed to the French and no doubt to those who explored it before the French built Fortress Louisbourg: the fertile soil and the boreal forest of prime ship-building material, old growth trees that extended right to the river bank in most places. These advantages certainly were valuable when the first Scottish immigrants settled here after the Highland Clearances. Land was cleared along the river banks and many gardens were planted in this protected location. As well, many acres of land on Boularderie Island, less than 30 miles to the north, produced food crops for the early inhabitants. These gardens supplied the people of the fortress with a quantity of seasonal fresh food to augment their main diet of fish and salt meat. The forests that surrounded the Mira River represented a gold mine of mixed timber sorely needed in the ship-building industry of the time. Tall oak trees, white pine and straight hard pine, along with giant red spruce trees, grew in abundance from the river banks far inland. Much of this prime timber was harvested and transported back to Louisbourg to be shipped to Europe, as the need there for boat- building material was paramount. The European forests had been decimated by their own boat-building industries. Especially at risk were the oak and hard pine trees that were used for masts. Along with salt fish, this valuable timber resource supported a strong trade relationship with the old world. It helped secure many of the items the settlers could not procure in New France, mostly items at the higher end of the manufacturing scale, from weapons to musical instruments. The French also cleared many acres of land along the river to pasture herds of French charolais cattle, another food source for the people of New France. The many fine attributes of the Mira River system were well known after 1600, but were never developed until the French founded Fortress Louisbourg. Before 1700, the river was the favourite haunt for pirates and privateers. In fact, there is an old indentation of some significance

- 202 - in the cliffs only a short distance from the ocean along the southern shore of the river. Research indicates that even in the mid-18th century, the French at Fortress Louisbourg referred to it as the Pirate Shipyard. I first visited this place with Jack Steele. Jack was a resident of the Mira River area, formerly brought up on Scatarie Island along with his brother, Fred, and other family members. He now fished lobsters in Mira Bay using the river entrance, or the 'eddy' as he called it, to moor his small boat, as did a few other fishermen. Jack also served as my maritime guide during the two years of the federal government’s Dive Scatarie Project that took place in 1974 and 1975. As Jack was a former resident of Scatarie Island, his knowledge proved invaluable. He told me there was a true treasure story tied to the Pirate Shipyard, one he witnessed firsthand. He said that just after the end of WW II, he was cutting pit props for a long-time resident of the area who owned the land above the shipyard, old Dan Ferguson. Dan talked about the Pirate Shipyard and the rumours that pirates had hidden treasure there. It was all just a story, Jack said, until the year a Dutch immigrant arrived in the area looking for work. His name was Blonnick, his first name escapes me. He arrived in Canada with another Dutchman I got to know very well, John Pronk. Apparently Blonnick had virtually no English but was a hard worker. Dan favoured him so much that he gave him preferred shelter in his hay barn. Jack also worked cutting pit props every day he was not employed at fishing. He later landed a job at the coal mines in Broughton, the Four Star Colliery to be exact. Jack said that when things were slow in the mines, he and his brother-in-law, George, ('Colonel' as he was known locally), went back cutting pit props for Dan Ferguson. On one of these occasions, they climbed the cliff at the back of the Pirate Shipyard looking for a shorter access route across the river and to their homes, a mile or two to the north. Jack often told me the story of what they found when they reached the top of the bank and walked only a short distance toward the Brickyard Road (named for the great brick kiln the French of Fortress Louisbourg built there along the river to supply red and fire brick to the fortress town). What they found were great square holes dug in the ground the size and depth of house

- 203 - foundations. Jack and George looked around to see how many such holes there were. He said there were many—maybe twenty or more. Most were the same depth and the size, but a few were twice as big. The questions quickly arose: who dug them and why? As Blonnick was nowhere to be found, they decided to ask old Dan. Dan told them Blonnick had left the area a few months before. He said he paid Dan for the supplies he used and for the use of the loft in the barn. He had secured passage on a ship back to Holland. Jack and George asked Dan who dug all those holes above the old shipyard? Dan replied, “Blonnick did. He used to work at those holes almost every day he was idle. He even worked on into the night; of course he had my permission.” Dan said Blonnick told him before leaving that he found part of a treasure map in a home where he boarded in England before he came to Canada. The map he showed to Dan certainly depicted the area but was in rough shape. He said he could see the river and a notation that pointed to the shipyard. He said he asked Blonnick how he was able to dig so many deep holes in hard ground, especially after a full day in the woods. He told Dan he was happy to do it, he called it a hobby. Dan showed Jack and George some of the strange gold money the Dutchman gave him as a keepsake. Dan said he put the majority of the coins in his safety deposit box. He just kept the few he showed them in his home. You would really need to know country folk, such as Dan, Jack and George, to understand the validity of the story. To them, everything that glittered was not the most important thing in life. Many years later, I found a hoard of Latin American gold and silver coins on a shipwreck at Scatarie Island. After declaring them to the local Receiver of Wreck and then getting them back after a year and a day as per the regulations, I showed them to Jack. After taking a minute or two to examine the gold coins he said: “Bob I am not certain, but these sure look like the coins that Dutchman left with old Dan.”

- 204 - We both pondered over the same questions: who buried them above the old shipyard and were there more? Who indeed? As the story goes, old Dan died leaving a valuable inheritance to his closest relatives. We all thought that odd, as Dan never showed any outward signs of wealth, just the opposite in fact. His home was dilapidated compared to others in the area. His old white horse and wagon seemed to be from another era. The horse was sway backed. The wagon he always used was basically tied together with bailing wire. But Dan was a brilliant man and took pride in the knowledge of his clan history both here in Canada and much further back in Scotland. He kept track of the Toronto stock market. In all, he surely was a riddle wrapped up in an enigma. The fact that Dan died leaving a rich estate surprised everyone in the area but not Jack Steele. He told me several times that old Dan found or was given part of that treasure Blonnick worked so hard for. Whatever the truth, I am sure this is a question that will remain unanswered for a long time to come. One day while having a shore lunch in Eastern Harbour, located at the eastern end of Scatarie Island, Jack told this story to David Dow, the research person attached to the Dive Scatarie Project. I could see immediately his disbelief, but out of respect for Jack, whom he got along famously with, he said he would check into it. David did just that. He took a deep dive into a research project about the Mira River and the Pirate Shipyard, as we became used to calling it. He began his investigations at Fortress Louisbourg and moved on to archives overseas. What he found out proved not just invaluable to the survey project itself, it proved invaluable to me as the full-time treasure hunter I was to become. David’s research showed just how important the Mira River was to the French citizens of Fortress Louisbourg and the fact they used the shipyard at the mouth of the river. In fact, David found reference to a particular pirate who made the Mira River a home-away-from-home for his small fleet. His name was Bartholomew Roberts, 'Black Bart' as he was known in the trade. He was a Welsh pirate, maybe the most successful one, if we take into account the over 400 ships he captured between 1719 and 1722 during the Golden Age of Piracy.

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