Flagship Erie Commemorative Plaque
It was Canada's worst airline disaster at the time. Now, after almost 78 years, there will be an official commemoration plaque honouring the Americans who died and the people of Lawrence, Ontario a small farming community who did what they could to help
The American Airline Flagship Erie dubbed "the New Yorker" crash that killed 17 passengers and three crew members of an American Airlines flight crashed on the night of Oct. 30, 1941. The plane came to its fiery end in an oat field in the small hamlet of Lawrence Station, about 25 kilometres west of St. Thomas, Ont.
The story of the crash made the front pages of newspapers across North America, but with Canada enveloped in the Second World War and the Pearl Harbour attack to come only weeks later, Canada's worst airline disaster up to that point would quickly fade from memory. This Sunday, September 9 2018, a few hundred people gathered at the crash site to unveil a plaque that commemorates those who perished when the DC-3 went down. It was about 10 p.m. and the plane had left Buffalo, N.Y., less than an hour earlier to make the second jump of a four-leg trip from New York to Chicago. The DC-3 was scheduled to land in Detroit that evening.
At the ceremony one of the family members of that long ago crash stated "We're enormously grateful to the Canadian people, both the people of that day 77 years ago and the Canadians of today," he said. "The people on that night, they didn't run away from tragedy and horror. They rushed toward it to see if anyone could be saved. Unfortunately, no one could be saved." Cooper Jr. says the kindness of Canadians will not be forgotten by members of the victims' families. "This is just part of the affection that we have for the people of Canada when others are trying to drive a wedge between our peoples," he said. "This is just one more example of the closeness of neighbours."
Two recommendations that came from the crash investigation would eventually lead to significant improvements in airline safety: The need for a device that could record what was happening on planes and a need to strengthen cockpit windows against possible bird strikes from the book Final Descent: The Loss of the Flagship Erie written by Robert Schweyer. Also included excepts from an article by Andrew Lupton