1957 Mitchell Bomber Crash in Winnipeg

Yesterday I found out about a Feb 16th 1957 plane crash in Winnipeg. This one was a Mitchell bomber that was coming in from Vancouver, skipped the last refueling stop, and ran out of fuel on approach to the Winnipeg airport.

It came down on three houses adjacent to the airport. There were no deaths or major injuries.
(What I have so far)

Does anyone know where / what street this was on?

There a few guys on this forum that should remember that one, after all, they also went for drinks with Orville and Wilbur after their first flight.

Doesn't the guy who invented fire post here?

Either way, this sounds interesting! I'd love to hear more about this crash!

Sounds familiar. There was a more recent crash (on McPhillips?) that occurred for the same reason. And then there was the infamous Gimli Glider.

Friends of mine own a business at Logan and McPhillips, and it's fascinating to hear them tell the story of the plane crash and helping people out.

Scary to think how close this plane crash was to the CO-OP propane and gas tanks! Can you imagine...

Winnipeg was an air training base for a long time.

In the 1920s and 1930s, de Havilland Moth crashes in Winnipeg were common enough to be considered a form of precipitation.

In the 1950s if you wanted a Beechcraft Expeditor, all you had to do is by a property around Winnipeg and wait.

(The 1972 crash on Linwood Street in St. James that killed 9 people, was a Beechcraft Super 18 - the civilian version of the Expediter. The model was replace by the Beechcraft Queen Air, one of which landed on a geologist sitting in his office on Dublin Ave in 1987.)

Mantha wrote:Friends of mine own a business at Logan and McPhillips, and it's fascinating to hear them tell the story of the plane crash and helping people out.

Scary to think how close this plane crash was to the CO-OP propane and gas tanks! Can you imagine...

I waited for 15 minutes at that intersection, transferring between buses. The bus came, and it couldn't have been more than three minutes before I got off on Jarvis. The fire trucks went by as I crossed the street, on their way to the crash.

Discovery Channel had the story of the Gimli Glider on (again) last night, and no matter how many times I see that story, I am still amazed.

So many things went right on that day, considering how dumb the initial mistake was and that takes nothing away from the skill and heroism of the crew.

Freeman wrote:considering how dumb the initial mistake was

There was no real dumb mistake that caused it. The crew had good reason to believe that they had enough fuel, for example.

That was a case of a whole bunch of things adding up: A new, unfamiliar jet. The first to not have a third crewman in the cockpit - a dedicated engineer to handle fuel, etc. The air crew throught the ground crew took over responsibility. The ground crew thought it was still the air crew's responsibiliy. The first use of metric in refueling. A ground crewman who converted gallons (used by the fuel truck) to kilograms (used by the aircraft) instead of gallons to litres and THEN litres to kilograms. A pilot who signed off on the conversion because he saw the correct metric conversion factor - but not that it was applied improperly. A faulty fuel sensor controller. A bad judgement call on that sensor by a ground technician. Etc.

Most modern airliner disasters are like that. With all the safety procedures, it takes a highly unlikely combination of a bunch of things to go wrong.

No REAL dumb mistake? Au contraire mon frere...

REAL fricken dumb mistake. By Boeing. By Air Canada. By the ground crew. By the flight crew.

This was a situation that SCREAMED double and triple and quadruple checking.

I'm sorry, but no matter how you cut it, running out of fuel in mid flight is a pretty dumb mistake. Blame whoever or whatever you want, but it was just plain dumb. This is not your lawnmower running out of gas before you finish, lives are at stake and its not like you can sit on the side of the road and wait for some friendly Hutterite to come by to help you out. It was just dumb.

grumpy old man wrote:This was a situation that SCREAMED double and triple and quadruple checking.

They DID have double and triple and quadruple checking. As shown above, it wasn't that simple.

The biggest mistake was by Air Canada management. At a time when an engineer was needed the most - a new jetliner AND it being the first to use metric - they dropped the engineer without delegating his responsibilities to others.

The fuel sensor controller - the first check - was faulty. The ground technician misdiagnosed it and put it back into service - the second check. The ground crew did the metric conversion to calculate the fuel in the plane - the third check - but applied it incorrectly. They had the paperwork signed off by the pilot, who saw the correct conversion factor - the forth check. Both thought the other was ultimately responsible, ultimately the expert on the conversion, so they trusted the math of the other.

A fifth check: With less fuel - less weight - the plane had a very impressive climb rate. On an earlier aircraft this would have been alarming. On the new 767, well, it had an impressive amount of power.

That makes it a real dumb mistake in my books. Absolve whomever youse like: the ground crew made a major mistake. You don't know how to convert to metric? You find out. A dumb mistake. By everyone involved.

Not sure why this is even debatable.

I guess on a somewhat related note...

Air Canada jet makes emergency Winnipeg landing

CBC News

Emergency crews surround an Air Canada jet that made an emergecy landing in Winnipeg on Wednesday. (CBC)

A cracked windshield forced an Air Canada pilot to make an emergency landing in Winnipeg on Wednesday afternoon.

There were no injuries when Air Canada Flight 169 landed at the James Richardson International Airport at about 2:15 p.m. CT, according to the Winnipeg Airport Authority.

The Airbus passenger jet was on its way to Vancouver from Toronto and had 152 passengers and crew on board.

The WAA spokesperson did not know what caused the windshield to crack.

Fire and other emergency crews rushed to the scene but were quickly called off.

This seems to occur with frequency. Emergency landings in Winnipeg that is. I wonder how often this happens and if they publish the data.

Man, I have to start bringing my scanner with me to work so I can listen in on air traffic control. Interesting stuff.

Quit listening to the radio and get back to work!!

I can do both... multitasking, y'know!

Wow, you're good. I have to turn the radio off when I drink a glass of water.

*Glorp. Spash.*

Ahhh, that's how it's done...

SMW wrote:Man, I have to start bringing my scanner with me to work so I can listen in on air traffic control. Interesting stuff.

I once listened to an aircraft coming from one of those fishing camps up north at the extreme edge of the aircraft's fuel range.

The guy was requesting/begging a straight-in approach because of low fuel. Air traffic control kept asking him if he wanted to declare an emergency. He didn't want to (that would mean a Transport Canada investigation), but he REALLY needed that straight-in approach.

Of course a few years later another aircraft coming from a fishing resort up north had to go 'round after a missed approach. He didn't have enough fuel for a second try, and came down at Logan and McPhillips.

btw, It turns out the Mitchell Bomber in this topic came down on houses on Collegiate and Ferry Road, just south of Silver Ave.

It removed part of the roof of the house at 422 Collegiate, removed part of the garage roof at 428 College, and destroyed the garage at 425 Ferry. It came to a stop mostly in a vacant lot, with the nose pushed into the living room at 435 Ferry. Luckily, the Campbells at 435 Ferry weren't home.

Thanks to MrChristian over at NewWinnipeg for the photo caption info. I'm going to subscribe to the Free Press archives. I didn't know that they were available online.

I wish I'd been into radio and scanning back when 9/11 was happening. The ATC traffic would have made for interesting listening.

SMW wrote:I wish I'd been into radio and scanning back when 9/11 was happening. The ATC traffic would have made for interesting listening.

I have the NYPD recordings somewhere on my hard drive, made by someone with a scanner. I probably will never listen to them a second time.

RogerStrong wrote:I have the NYPD recordings somewhere on my hard drive, made by someone with a scanner. I probably will never listen to them a second time.

Yeah, I don't think I could either. The Winnipeg ones would be interesting, just to see how they dealt with the (greatly) increased traffic, as well as sizes of aircraft they weren't used to seeing.

There was that plane that crashed at confusion corner too. 2005? 2004? Icing problems?

1957-1944= 13 years old. That was before I learned how to read the Winnipeg Tribune!
Sorry, I have no recollection of this at all. I was in Grade 7 and was tied up with listening to Elvis', and saying he's no good, all he is , is a truck driver!