| Occurrence summary | |
|---|---|
| Date | November 29, 1963 |
| Type | System failure |
| Site | Ste-Thérèse-de-Blainville, Quebec, Canada |
| Passengers | 111 |
| Crew | 7 |
| Injuries | 0 |
| Fatalities | 118 |
| Survivors | 0 |
| Aircraft type | Douglas DC-8F |
| Operator | Trans-Canada Air Lines |
| Tail number | CF-TJN |
| Destination | Toronto International Airport |
Trans-Canada Air Lines (TCA) Flight 831 was a flight from Montreal-Dorval Airport (now Montréal/Trudeau) to Toronto International Airport (now Toronto-Pearson) on November 29, 1963. The aircraft was a four-engine Douglas DC-8-54CF airliner, registered CF-TJN. About five minutes after takeoff in poor weather, the jet crashed about 20 miles (32 km) north of Montreal, near Ste-Thérèse-de-Blainville, Quebec, Canada, killing all 118 people on board: 111 passengers and 7 crew members.[1] The crash was the worst in Canadian history at that time.[2]
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At 6:28 P.M., the DC-8 began its takeoff roll on runway 06. The crew reported back when they reached 3,000 feet (910 m) and were given clearance for a left turn. It was shortly after the clearance was given that the aircraft deviated from its expected flight path, and began a quick descent. At about 6:33 P.M. the jet struck the ground at an estimated 470–485 knots (870–898 km/h) while descending at about a 55-degree angle (± 7 degrees).[2]
The aircraft had plunged into a soggy field, about 100 metres from the main highway leading to the Laurentian Mountains. One witness said she had seen what looked like "a long red streak in the sky" just before the crash.[3] The red-trimmed, silver jet dug a crater 6 feet (1.8 m) deep and 150 feet (46 m) wide in the ground that soon began to fill with rainwater.[4] Rescue parties were hampered by deep mud around the wreckage, and by a fuel-fed fire that lasted for hours despite heavy rain.[4] Although parts of the plane were scattered over a wide area, the craft broke into two main sections when it struck the ground. The site of the crash was a flat field away from houses in the town of 12,000 people. The main sections of the wreckage lay about halfway between Highway 11, now Quebec Route 117, and the Laurentian Autoroute.
The plane was too badly damaged to determine a definite cause. The official report released in 1965 pointed to problems in the jet's pitch trim system (the device that maintains a set nose-up or -down attitude) as a possibility, since a pitch trim problem caused the similar crash of Eastern Air Lines Flight 304, another DC-8, three months later in 1964.[5] Other possible causes were put forward that could not be ruled out: 1) Icing of the pitot system; and 2) Failure of the vertical gyro.[2]
76 victims were from the Metropolitan Toronto-area, while only three victims were foreign nationals: two from the United States of America, and one from India.[3] A TCA official was quoted as saying that "the bodies were so badly smashed that identification was virtually hopeless."[3] The plane's flight crew included World War II bomber pilot Captain John (Jack) D. Snider, 47 years old, the pilot, of Toronto; First Officer Harry J. Dyck, 35, of Leamington, Ontario; and Second Officer Edward D. Baxter, 29, of Toronto.[3]
Among those on the flight were Donald Hudson, a television producer for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Toronto police officers Sergeant John Bassett and Detective Kenneth Evans, and Donald Turnbull, son of inventor Wallace Rupert Turnbull.[6] Also killed was Charles Stone of Montreal, a former co-owner of the Canadian Football League's (CFL) Montreal Alouettes; his death occurred during the CFL's Grey Cup week in Vancouver.[3] The casualty count could have been higher; car traffic congestion on Montreal's main expressway caused twelve people to miss this flight.[7] The traffic congestion, which extended all the way into the downtown core, also delayed emergency vehicles from getting to the crash-site.[7]
TCA was the predecessor to Air Canada, and created a memorial garden near the site of the crash. The memorial is located at the Cimetière de Sainte-Thérèse.[8] The crash site is now within a present-day developed residential neighborhood.[9]
Though it is customary for airlines to retire a flight number after a major incident, Air Canada continues to use the number 831 for the same route. Flight 831 originates in Geneva and terminates in Toronto with a stopover in Montreal.[10]
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