Air Canada Flight 189 was an

Air Canada Air Canada is the flag carrier and the largest airline of Canada by the size and passengers carried. Air Canada maintains its headquarters in the borough of Saint-Laurent, Montreal, Quebec. The airline, founded in 1937, provides scheduled an ...

flight from Ottawa to

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

via

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

and

Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749, ...

. On June 26, 1978, the

McDonnell Douglas DC-9 The McDonnell Douglas DC-9 is an American five-abreast single-aisle aircraft designed by the Douglas Aircraft Company. It was initially produced by the developer company as the Douglas DC-9 until August 1967 and then by McDonnell Douglas. Afte ...

operating the flight crashed on takeoff in Toronto, killing two passengers.

Aircraft

The aircraft involved was a

32 series, powered by two

Pratt & Whitney JT8D The Pratt & Whitney JT8D is a low-bypass (0.96 to 1) turbofan engine introduced by Pratt & Whitney in February 1963 with the inaugural flight of the Boeing 727. It was a modification of the Pratt & Whitney J52 turbojet engine which powered the ...

engines and delivered new to Air Canada in April 1968. At the time of the incident the aircraft had accumulated 25,476 hours of flight time. The aircraft was registered CF-TLV and was the 289th DC-9 built at the Long Beach assembly plant. The 32 series was a stretched version of the DC-9 that was 15 feet (4.6 m) longer than the original series 10.

Crash

During takeoff, at 8:15 a.m., one of the

McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32 The McDonnell Douglas DC-9 is an American five-abreast single-aisle aircraft designed by the Douglas Aircraft Company. It was initially produced by the developer company as the Douglas DC-9 until August 1967 and then by McDonnell Douglas. After ...

's tires burst and partially disintegrated, firing chunks of rubber into the

landing gear Landing gear is the undercarriage of an aircraft or spacecraft that is used for takeoff or landing. For aircraft it is generally needed for both. It was also formerly called ''alighting gear'' by some manufacturers, such as the Glenn L. Martin ...

mechanism. This set off an "unsafe gear" warning, prompting the pilot to abort the takeoff. The aircraft, however, was already two-thirds along the length of runway 23L and travelling at . It could not stop before the end of the runway, and plunged off the edge of an embankment while still travelling at , coming to a rest in the

Etobicoke Creek Etobicoke Creek is a river in the Greater Toronto Area of Ontario, Canada. It is a tributary of Lake Ontario and runs from Caledon to southern Etobicoke, part of the City of Toronto. The creek is within the jurisdiction of the Toronto and Regio ...

ravine A ravine is a landform that is narrower than a canyon and is often the product of streambank erosion. The plane broke into three pieces, but despite its full load of fuel did not catch fire. The accident was visible from Highway 401, which runs alongside the south side of the airport. The plane was destroyed. Two passengers were killed. Both were seated at the site of the forward split in the

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraf ...

. All of the other 105 passengers and crew aboard were injured.

Investigation

The subsequent investigation found multiple causes of the accident. It recommended greater scrutiny be given to the tires. The pilot, Reginald W. Stewart, delayed four seconds after the warning light came on before he chose to abort the takeoff; a more immediate decision would have prevented the accident. The investigators also criticized the level of training in emergency braking. The presence of the ravine at the end of the runway was also questioned, but nothing was done about it. This failure to expand the airport's overshoot zone was raised when

Air France Flight 358 Air France Flight 358 was a regularly scheduled international flight from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, France, to Toronto Pearson International Airport in Ontario, Canada. On the afternoon of 2 August 2005, while landing at Pearson Ai ...

plunged into the same ravine 27 years later.

Aftermath

Although it is customary for some airlines to retire a flight number after a major incident, Air Canada continued to use Flight 189 for its Ottawa-Vancouver route for several years. As of 2018, the flight number is no longer active on Air Canada's timetable.

References

External links