More than 70 years after a Second World War aircraft disappeared on a training flight over B.C., the wreckage has been found and four servicemen have been identified.
It was during World War 2, October 30th 1942, when the Avro Anson plane took off from Patricia Bay airbase, now Victoria Internaional Airport. A Canadian and three British airmen were aboard. Foggy weather set in, a radio call went out to recall the plane but the aircraft disappeared.
I Love Vancouver Island fan, Georgia Andrews, says her dad, Sgt. George Topp, was scheduled to be on a flight from Pat Bay during WWII. He was called off , and into a meeting, just as he was setting foot on the aircraft. He often told the story about his missing plane that was never found and that it was fate that he lived to tell the story. Could this have been his flight? Her father passed away in 2007.
The BC Coroners Service says what was left of the Avro Anson was discovered last October by a logging crew working on a remote mountainside near Port Renfrew, B.C., on the west coast of Vancouver Island.
Human remains were found at the scene, but bad weather prevented recovery of Royal Canadian Air Force Sgt. William Baird and British air force Pilot Officer Charles Fox, Pilot Officer Anthony Lawrence and Sgt. Robert Luckock.
Officials with the coroners service and Department of National Defence returned to the heavily-forested mountainside on May 5 and removed, analysed and identified the remains.
Canadian military officials and Britain’s Ministry of Defence have contacted surviving family members, and plans for an interment ceremony are under discussion.
