April 5, 2002 More local plane crashes in perspective

As mentioned last week, I discovered a report in the Nugget of a P-51 Mustang IV fighter plane that crashed twelve days before the George Hunter CF100 crash east of Powassan. The P-51 single engine Mustang fighter plane was built originally in 1940 in Britain in 117 days for the Royal Air Force. It became "probably the best fighter plane of the war." It accompanied bombers on their missions and saved many lives. By 1953 it was a training plane in Canada.

Operation Suttle

On the morning of July 18, 1953, ten P-51 Mustangs from the Calgary Reserve Squadron took off from the North Bay airport on their way home from a trip to Rockcliffe in Ottawa. The tail plane, flown by Flying Officer J. S. Suttle, rose in formation to 18000 feet and suddenly disappeared into the clouds. This created "Operation Suttle" the largest air search since NHL star Bill Birilko went down near Timmins.

Over the next eight days, Mitchell and Lancaster bombers, Norsemen bush planes, and Expeditors searched from sunrise to sunset in an intricate grid pattern. When a logger from Hearst reported having seen a low-flying plane near Emerald Lake, fifty northwest of North Bay, the search shifted there. Eventually a small flash of reflection was seen and later pinpointed in dense bush. Three RCAF Para medics jumped from 1000 feet into a small clearing a mile from the crash and slashed their way to the wreck. FO Suttle was still in his seat in the cockpit, dead on impact. They brought the body out and took it by helicopter to North Bay, ending the mammoth "Operation Suttle."

Operation Guilmette Lake

Gaetan Laferriere, Conrad Guillemette, and Bobby Laferriere (L to R) at the end of the trail near the Guilmette Lake crash site. Gaetan Laferriere photo.

In the early 1950s (no date available) a plane went down south east of Guilmette Lake in South Boulter Township, 40 km south east of North Bay. The wreckage still remains, strewn over a large dry swamp where the plane went down. The plane was apparently a twin propeller American six-seater war surplus plane, purchased by an American doctor who was flying with his secretary/nurse and a dog. I spent several hours going through microfilm of the Nugget from that era, but have not been able to pinpoint the accident. Several people have visited the sites, and I have talked to them to find out what they have found.

Ashley Muttart reviewing photos of crash at Guilmette Lake in Boulter Township. Doug Mackey photo.

Ray Labreque, who traps in the area, cut the original trail into the site going south from the MNR Forest Access Road, going east out of Chisholm Township on Pioneer Road (8^th Concession). In a recent conversation 17 year old Ashley Muttart, who has been there several times, showed me photographs and described the site. On one occasion, he was there with a group of men who overturned one of the engines, using RVs and winches, and found a second propeller. Ashley removed the small plate from the Pratt and Whitney engine, giving details that would be of interest to engine buffs, including the fact that it was produced for the Untied States Air force. On another occasion, three Laferriere brothers, Gaetan, Robert and Vince, and brother-in-law Conrad Guillemette, visited the site and took the photographs shown here.

Examining the engine from the plane in the dry swamp near Guilmette Lake. Gaetan Laferriere photo.

When the plane went down in the early 1950s, a trapper saw it was in trouble and reported it. Another trapper, Harry Boeme of Chisholm Township, who had a camp in Boulter Township, was asked to be a guide to the rescue party and they found the wreck and removed the bodies. There was no sign of the dog.

Wrong Way Peck

Many of you have heard of Wrong Way Corrigan, the American folk hero who in 1938 filed a flight plan from New York to California, and twenty nine hours later landed in Ireland. He claimed his compass was broken but, as it turns out, that was a trick to get him to Ireland, where he had been refused a flight plan. Fifty years later, Wrong Way Peck left from Connecticut to fly to Ohio and ended up, when his compass malfunctioned, in a farmer’s field outside of Powassan. More about this next week.

As a footnote to the CF100 crash in Chisholm Township that I wrote about last week, I had a conversation with Yvonne Buckner, who lived in Chisholm Township at the time of the crash. Yvonne and her husband Albert drove to the crash site, leaving their children at the farm house in the care of their oldest child. When a knock came at the door, they opened it to find Squadron Leader Burnett bleeding and shaken. They brought him in and got him comfortable, and let him call the airbase. The two oldest sisters still have laminated copies of the Nugget, describing the adventure. Squadron Leader Burnett returned a couple of weeks later, just before Christmas, and gave all of the children a nice Christmas gift. Yvonne has provided me with a copy of the newspaper articles, which I will turn over to the Powassan Museum, along with some other clippings on local plane crashes.