A typical CCA inquiry into a flying club crash read:
Report on Moth aircraft (CF-CAV) that crashed at Millidgeville, New Brunswick, on June 14, 1931, causing the death of Mr. J.K. Stirling, pilot, and Mr. Rudyard Brayley, passenger. We learned that Stirling, the pilot of the crashed aircraft, was definitely rough on the controls and was addicted to stunting. He had previously been under suspension by the club for one such offence and was fined $100 for a second. He was of an impulsive and arrogant nature but A.1 physically and a strict teetotaler. He fully intended to go stunting on the last flight.[3]
While few Canadians had been in an aircraft at all even at the fairgrounds, in Europe the transport of passengers by airliner began almost as soon as the guns of the Great War were silent. And why not? European capitals were close to one another, the Alps were the only geographical impediment, and for reasons of national prestige, governments poured money into “flag carriers” such as Imperial Airways, Air France, and Lufthansa. Well into the 20th century, Europeans considered profit for a state airline secondary to “flying the flag.”
It was different in Canada. An overbuilt railway system controlled by two empires, Canadian National and Canadian Pacific, in a country that barely had the population to support one meant that, as in the United States, the federal government looked to private industry to invest in commercial aviation. In December 1926, after buying an old HS-2L flying boat and a new Fokker Universal aircraft, Winnipeg grain dealer James Richardson bravely inaugurated Western Canada Airways (WCA). A freight carrier with the odd miner, trapper, or Mountie as passengers, WCA serviced the resource industry, initially at Red Lake, Ontario. Richardson was always painfully aware that only federal government contracts to fly mail would keep his company solvent and that several other aviation companies were also lobbying Ottawa for them. Scheduled passenger flights in Canada were to commence in the summer of 1928 — with disastrous consequences.
In 1929, impressed by all things German, in this case the metal Junkers trimotor G31 monoplane, Charles Lindbergh helped publicize Henry Ford’s venture into aviation. Designed by Bill Stout, whose company Henry Ford eventually bought, the 4-AT (called the “Tin Goose”) was dubbed the “safest airliner in the world.” Of all-metal construction, unlike the wood-and-fabric airliners then in use, the Tin Goose suggested great strength. The thickness of its airfoil, the absence of bracing wires, powered by not one but three 200-horsepower Wright radial engines, the aircraft was able to carry up to 12 passengers in a cabin high enough for a steward to walk around the aisle without stooping and serve food.
Prominent citizens pose with the Ford trimotor in August 1928. The first multi-engine metal aircraft to come to Canada, it would crash for unknown reasons while crossing the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Vancouver Archives.
Until the advent of the Boeing 747, no other aircraft had such a psychological impact on the public as did the Tin Goose. Operated by Transcontinental Air Transport (TAT) in the United States, the trimotor allowed passengers to enjoy hot meals (catered by the Fred Harvey Company, no less), sliding windows (to throw the “barf” bags out), and an actual “comfort station” in the rear — a hole in the floor but still a toilet.[4] Reassuring in strength, the ultimate in luxury, the Tin Goose could be compared with the Titanic.
Despite its name, British Columbia Airways was little more than a flying school that owned Lansdowne Airfield in Victoria. In April 1928, however, financed by local businessmen, the fledgling airline bought a 4-AT and planned to use it on the Vancouver-Victoria-Seattle triangle that August. Registered as G-CATX, the aircraft was picked up in Detroit by Ted Cressy and Hal Walker, an experienced pilot who had survived flying for the U.S. Post Office. The plane was flown home through the United States (there were few airfields in Canada) with a number of prominent citizens from Vancouver and Victoria on board, including the mayors of both cities.
Upon landing at Lulu Island, Vancouver’s airport, on August 7, the Ford trimotor was the first multi-engine metal aircraft to come to Canada. The Tin Goose was equipped with an impressive instrument array in its cockpit — an airspeed indicator, an altimeter, a turn indicator, and one of the first artificial horizons. But its arrival was ominous and marred by near-tragedy. With no regard for the three whirling propellers moving toward them, crowds rushed forward to greet the huge aircraft, and only the skill of the pilots prevented an accident. Then as L.D. Taylor, the mayor of Vancouver (no doubt dazed and deafened by hours in the Tin Goose), stepped out and walked over to address the welcoming committee, he was struck on the head by a propeller and rushed to the hospital.
On August 25, with Walker and flying club instructor Robert Carson at the controls, the trimotor lifted off at 4:00 p.m. from Lansdowne Airfield for Seattle. There were five passengers and a fox terrier on board. Crossing the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the aircraft was enveloped by a fog bank near Port Townsend, Washington. The only witness to its demise was a fisherman who saw it turn violently, its wing tip hitting the water, and cartwheel into the ocean. With all that metal, the three radial engines, those sliding windows, the hole-in-the-floor toilet, it must have gone to the bottom immediately. Two bodies and some of the wicker chairs washed ashore. Aircraft, U.S. Customs boats, and Canadian naval vessels attempted to locate the 4-AT (it went down in U.S. waters) but without success. This was the first ocean crash the CCA encountered.
Asked about investigating air accidents that had taken place over water, Peter Rowntree, the Transportation Safety Board’s regional senior investigator, writes:
When most people hear about an aircraft accident, they think of them as only happening on land. The search, recovery, and corresponding investigations for those accidents are often very complex. However, that complexity pales in comparison when the aircraft has crashed in water. It is that very complexity that makes searching for missing aircraft on water so interesting, frustrating, and rewarding.
My first introduction to water-based search-and-recovery operations was Swissair Flight 111 off the coast of Nova Scotia near Peggys Cove in 1998. From that investigation on, I’ve always been fascinated by the world of search-and-recovery operations on water.
Searching for a missing or downed aircraft in water can vary from relatively easy to insanely complex. It is akin to looking for the proverbial needle in a hay stack. Quite often, we are lucky and the aircraft remains partially afloat and is easily spotted by air or surface vessels. Other times, it has gone down in a relatively known or confined area and is moderately difficult to locate. Finally, there are those times where you have a general idea of where the aircraft went down, but finding the aircraft can be extremely difficult. This can turn into your worst nightmare. But the harder the aircraft is to find, the greater the sense of accomplishment when it’s finally located.
There are so many variables to consider when we start looking for an aircraft under water. How deep is the water? What is the clarity of the water? How big is the search area? What time of year did the accident happen? What are the weather conditions like? What equipment and expertise are available and how much will all of it cost? One thing is for certain, the cost of search and recovery for a submerged aircraft is expensive, and those costs can increase [exponentially] with the size of the search area, the depth of the water, the duration of the search, and the size of the aircraft.
Once the aircraft is found, the recovery effort can be just as complex if not impossible. Before any decision to recover can be made, the aircraft must be thoroughly surveyed and documented. There is often much that investigators can learn by just looking at the wreckage underwater before anything is disturbed. This phase of the investigation can again be quite lengthy but can provide vital clues as to what happened before the aircraft is recovered.[5]
With no such resources in 1928, the CCA could only speculate on what evasive action Walker took and why. On hearing of the crash, Henry Ford cabled to advise that his company had “perfected a system of flotation which will definitely keep a plane above water.” Transcontinental Air Transport (TAT), the U.S. airline that also operated Ford trimotors, lost three more planes in the next five months and almost went out of business, its initials becoming “Take a Train.” Conjectures on what caused the