Disaster on Mount Slesse: The Story of Western Canada's Worst Air Crash

Patricia A. Myers is a historian at the Historic Sites and Archives
Service, Alberta Community Development. She is the author of Sky Riders:
An Illustrated History of Aviation in Alberta, 1906–1945 and
Preserving Women’s History.

On December 9, 1956, Trans-Canada Flight 801 smashed into Mount Slesse,
a peak near Chilliwack, British Columbia, killing all 62 people on
board. In this book, Vancouver-based journalists Betty O’Keefe and Ian
Macdonald use their reporting skills to delve into the crash and its
aftermath.

In true journalistic fashion, their account highlights a love story and
the public figures (football players) who were killed in the crash.
Short chapters build tension and suspense. An epilogue tells of the
ironic fate of the mountain climber who discovered the crash site: she
was killed in an avalanche while climbing another peak in the Rockies.

The story of Flight 801 combines the best and worst of human nature,
ranging from the efforts of searchers to locate the plane to the macabre
glee of the several hundred people who tried to get to the site once its
location was known. The authors probe the inquiry into the causes of the
crash, and its inconclusive results. “What we know now,” they
conclude, “is what we knew then: a dead engine, a stormy night, a
wrong course, a loss of altitude, a calm captain, a disaster.”

The book is illustrated with black-and-white photos, some of which were
contributed by relatives of the deceased. There is an index, but no
footnotes or bibliography.