Aviation Memorabilia Newsletter

July 23, 2016 marks the 33rd anniversary of the “Gimli Glider” incident in 1983.

Chris Dion was a small child on board flight 143 travelling with his parents, Rick and Pearl Dion. He has saved and framed the boarding passes from the flight and agreed to share the images with our readers. Chris now lives in Surrey, British Columbia.

Did you know that a feature film was made in 1995 based on the incident and that Captain Robert Pearson appears in the film in a cameo role? Click here to view the complete film, ‘Freefall – Flight 174’, on YouTube. Captain Pearson appears at 3:45 as a flight simulator examiner.

Spoiler alert: The film is ‘based’ on the incident and has some inaccuracies. Click here for IMDB trivia on the film.

Najam Jafri, after reading NL # 1342 sent us this memory -

Nice reading the NetLetter bringing up all the memories of Air Canada and Fin # 604 once again. Talking about Gimli Glider someone came to me and asked if I wanted to say goodbye to 604. When I arrived it was leaving the hanger and I joined the crowd present to say goodbye. It was January 24, 2008 and I took my retirement as of February 1, 2008. 

I happened to work on its recovery at YWG in September 1983. I have these photos of 604 taken during repair. You can see the belly of aircraft was ripped apart and we were changing the lower skin.

Here we have myself, Jean Luc Cruhen sitting in the inlet, Al Capagreco sitting in the chair and I think the person holding cap is Chris McNelly but I am not sure.

Myself working on the cargo bay; I don't remember the name of the person watching me It was 33 years ago. 
Life of a retired AC employee.

Regards, Najam

Norman Hogwood, in New Zealand, has sent this information and photo - 

FARTEX Reunion - Planned for early October, 2016, probably at the BC Aviation Museum at YYJ. Here we have a photo of the last reunion in September, 2011.

Caz Cazwell is looking for some help identifying members of the crews that took deliveries of the 3 A300 aircraft leased by Wardair in 1988. See NL 1342 for the full story. Click each image to view full size.

The July 1st, 1946 flight 303, DC-3 CF-TEG was the inauguration of service into Chicago from London, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal was a big event in the company's story.

Brian Losito has sent us some photos from the TCA/Air Canada archives. Here we have the arrival in Chicago of the inaugural flight.