Nov. 15, 2002 Plane Crash Near Kiosk Revisited

When I wrote several columns on plane crashes a few months ago I could not find any information on a remembered crash near Kiosk in northern Algonquin Park about thirty years ago. I was recently talking to former Kiosk resident Roger "Buddy" Bergeron, who not only knew about the crash but had a clipping from the Nugget twenty nine years ago, eight months after the crash when the plane was found. From that article I was able to trace back to a Nugget article on the crash on February 19th 1963.

A Nugget photo of the Cessna 180 that took Dr. J.B. Michaud and his son Yves to their deaths near Kiosk, thirty years ago this winter.

At 9:22 p.m. on February 17th Dr. J.B. Michaud, age 56, from Drummondville Quebec, and his twelve year old son Yves, one of Dr. Michaud's nine children, took off from North Bay for Dorval Airport. The airport manager Lorne Hicks reported that contact was kept with the plane for the first few minutes after it took off. Dr. Michaud's Cessna 180 failed to arrive at the Dorval Airport on schedule. By 5:00 a.m. the next morning rescue headquarters at Trenton was notified and a Dakota aircraft took off immediately in spite of bad weather and flew over the scheduled route of the Cessna. Dr. Michaud had filed a visual flight plan before leaving North Bay, which indicated that the weather was reasonable. The weather on the day of the search was very unfavourable, with low ceilings preventing decent visibility. It snowed all night, and a foot of snow covered the ground. A ground search team was made ready for action if the plane was spotted.

By Tuesday, twenty -six planes were involved in one of the largest combined air searches in Ontario. At sunrise 10 Dakotas and Expeditors from North Bay and Air Search and Rescue Headquarters at Trenton took off under bright skies. Sixteen other aircraft from St. Huberts, Drummondville, and Ottawa were added to the search. Three of these planes were flown by friends of Dr. Michaud. One of the RCAF planes had nine observers scanning the ground.  Nothing was found, and the search continued over the following week.

The North Bay fuel report for Dr. Michaud indicated that his plane had plenty of fuel. The report also indicated that Dr. Michaud had diluted his gasoline with three quarts of oil because of the cold weather. The plane has flares, lanterns and a tent on board. Residents at Kiosk reported a low flying plane on Sunday evening, so special attention was given to the area east of Kiosk.

Jim Albertie, who worked at the airport at the time, told me that he had taken recognised Dr. Michaud and his son who were downtown on the day of their flight because of bad weather that morning. He drove Dr. Michaud and his son back to the airport and chatted with them at some length prior to their take off, and was probably the last person to talk to them, except for air traffic control.

There was no sign of the plane until eight months later, on October 24th 1963, when a TCA pilot landing in North Bay reported that he had seen something shiny in the bush between Mink Lake and White Birch Lake, sixteen kilometres south east of Kiosk. This pilot had been one of the original searchers eight months before. The OPP and the RCAF immediately sent in a ground team, which found the plane and the bodies. A heavy chain was used to raise the engine in order to extricate the Michauds, who had been killed instantly. The front seats had been driven back into the plane, and parts of the plane were spread over the area. Bears had been at the bodies.

News story on the discovery of the crash site eight months after the event.

Roger Bergeron, mentioned above, and several other people from Kiosk, made an excursion to the crash site shortly after its discovery. They travelled east from Kiosk on Lake Kioshkokwi, under the CNR bridge, and found the trail where the engine had been removed for study. The scene was much like the scene in the photo here. Everything except the engine and the bodies remain today. A study of the engine found no mechanical problems, and the oil/gas mixture was not a factor in the crash.