Tofino, BC

"The next thing I knew I was under water. I had to swim under water to the cargo doors at the rear of the plane".

That was how Cpl. William Toombs of Kelowna describes his harrowing ordeal when an RCAF Canso crashed in choppy seas Thursday in Johnstone Strait, 130 miles northwest of Vancouver.

All 16 survivors of the ill-fated plane are recovering from their near brush with death in St. Joseph’s hospital in Comox. Three airmen died in the crash.

Said flight engineer Toombs: "Everything went normal until after we touched down, when the plane seemed to flip up on its nose.

The next thing I knew I was under water, and had to swim under water to the cargo doors at the rear of the plane. The nose broke off, and allowed some escape that way.

We did not have full gas tanks, and this buoyancy in the wings held us up."

The survivors got on the wings and AC1 Albert Gallant of Halifax said the choppy sea calmed down to allow them to be rowed, in three trips, to the waiting herring packer, Western Challenger.

Alex Karavanieks, 1024 Pacific, mate aboard the fish packer Western Challenger, is credited with saving the lives of many of the survivors who huddled on the wings.

His sighting of the crashing plane led to their prompt rescue before the aircraft sank beneath the chill waters. The action prevented a possible recurrence of the grim scenes of horror in January 1952, when a Korean airlift plane overshot a runway at Sandspit and crashed in the sea.

That crash took the lives of 36 aboard, many of whom drowned when they slipped off the partially submerged wings.

Dead in Thursdays crash are: Flying Officer PC Walker, 2063 Salisbury, North Burnaby, navigator; Flying Officer DK McPherson, 506 East Fifty-Third, radio officer; and Aircraftman NC Thompson, of Toronto, stationed at the Vancouver Island air force base of Tofino.

Injured in the crash, believed caused by an engine failure were: Flying Officer DF Sutcliffe, pilot, injuries serious but unknown; T Grant, a civilian, injuries unknown but not serious, in hospital at Courtenay.

Flight Lieutenant. DW McNichol, cut face and Leading Aircraftman LF Fatt, broken arm, in Lourdes Hospital, Campbell River.

The uninjured were: Flying Officer RW Peterson, co-pilot, Sea Island; Corporal WE Toombs, flight engineer, Sea Island; AC1 HL Botting, AC1 PW Bowland, AC1 JD Ruhland, AC1 RJ O’Bonsawin, AC1 ASC Gallant, AC1 CD Thompson, LAC JDP Graham, AC1 EL Brown, and AC1 GE Gallagher, all of Tofino, and Mr. Woodin, a visiting technician.

An all-out investigation will be launched today into the cause of the crash.

This morning, the wreckage was lying under 24 fathoms of water lashed to the shore. Ropes were strung up while the plane was still afloat.

RCMP are guarding the wreck scene until the plane can be salvaged.

At 10:30am today, an air force diver was flown from Pat Bay to the scene to search the wreckage for the three missing bodies.

Sgt. Wilf Hetman, skipper of one of the RCAF’s crash boats and an experienced diver, was expected to dive today.

RCAF officials said home towns of some of the personnel will not be known until the files at the Tofino station are checked today.

The plane, loaded with supplies and personnel, left Vancouver shortly after noon on its twice weekly flight to RCAF stations at Comox, Tofino and Holberg on the northern end of Vancouver Island. On this trip, however, it did not stop at Comox.

At 2pm, pilot Sutcliffe attempted a forced landing on the water in Johnstone Strait, 60 miles north of Campbell River.

The RCAF declined to announce cause of the trouble but it is reported one of the planes engines failed.

It came down through low overcast and misty rain and hit with a huge splash.

One and a half miles away, the packer Western Challenger was steaming north with a scow.

Mate Alex Karavanieks spotted the plane off the port bow in the brief seconds it was visible before it crashed.

He immediately reported to his skipper, Captain Arthur Lilly, 3141 West Seventh.

Captain Lilly headed for the downed plane at full speed and reached the wreck within 10 minutes. He said the 16 survivors had been able to scramble clear and the uninjured were holding the injured steady on the wreckage.

The drifting wreck was later picked up by another tug and taken to nearby sheltered waters of Knox Bay.

A line was thrown to the survivors and they hauled a lifeboat through the choppy waters. The four injured were taken aboard the packer first. The operation took about an hour.

Captain Lilly then got a line aboard the submerged plane but he was forced to cast off later when a strong wind threatened to blow him on the rocks of nearby Helmcken Island.

First plane on the scene was a BC Air Lines Cessna, based at Campbell River, which is part of the RCAF Air-Search network along the north coast.

Pilot Bob Langford and Godfrey Baldwin, a member of the Ground Observer Corps, landed alongside the Western Challenger and flew two of the injured men to hospital at Campbell River.

Meanwhile, a Vancouver based Canso was speeding north to assist in the rescue and took the other two injured men to Courtenay.

The other survivors, many suffering from exposure, were given hot drinks aboard the Western Challenger. They were later transferred to the tug Margaret MacKenzie, taken to Kelsey Bay and then driven to Comox RCAF station for the night.