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Lost and found: Marking 60 years since the location of Flight 810 Mount Slesse crash site

On December 9th, 1956, Trans-Canada Airlines flight 810 went missing in a storm, on it’s way from Vancouver to Calgary.
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Front page of the Chilliwack Progress from May 15, 1957, reporting on the crash site location of the Trans-Canada Airlines flight 810 which slammed into the side of Mount Slesse on Dec. 9, 1956, killing all 62 people on board.

On December 9th, 1956, Trans-Canada Airlines flight 810 went missing in a storm, on it’s way from Vancouver to Calgary.

The estimated location of the disappearance was Silvertip Mountain and the surrounding area of Skagit Valley. With 62 souls at stake, and a new sheet of snow blanketing the mountains every hour, desperation to find any sign of the aircraft grew.

The week following the disappearance proved to be a gruelling disappointment for the many searching by land and air.

After a time, it was assumed that anyone who had survived, had now passed due to the elements, but families of the passengers clung on to the hope of their loved ones’ survival.

Five months passed with no news of the aircraft, until May 12, 1957, when Mountaineer, Elfrida Pigou, along with two fellow climbers, discovered pieces of the aircraft near the jagged peaks of Mount Slesse. Over the next few days following the discovery, many people, including reporters, made their way up the slopes of Slesse to find out as much asthey could about the crash.

Vancouver Sun reporter, Fips Broda, wrote, “Not one of the sixty-two persons aboard the Trans-Canada airliner on December 9 suffered even a split second of agony when the

plane crashed. I stood beside the wreckage of that crashed North Star and I can tell the families of those aboard the plane that nobody lived beyond the moment of impact. I am sure from what I saw at noon Tuesday at the top of Mount Slesse that the aircraft exploded the second it struck. All those inside died instantly.”

This was the day that the families of victims would finally receive the news they always knew to be true, but hoped they wouldn’t have to hear. Sixty years later, we remember them, as we look up to the mountain, standing tall, over our city; the final resting place for the 62 people aboard the North Star.

Mikeila Bellavance Li