Air crash at Heathrow, 1963

Before stumbling upon these pictures, which I never knew existed, I did have a memory of a Trans-Canada Airlines crash near Heathrow in 1960s. The plane came down in a cabbage field (so my father christened it kapuśniak, 'the cabbagey one', something I remembered). Researching the previous post, I was looking for information on this incident on Wikipedia's entry about Heathrow Airport. Because there were (miraculously) no fatalities in this crash, it was not listed. Today, while archiving my father's b&w negatives, I came across these photos.

Right: Close-up of the aircraft's nose, with tracked crawlers in place underneath, in preparation for its removal.

The aircraft, a Douglas DC-8-54CF Jet Trader, reg. no. CF-TJM, ship no. 813, crashed after an aborted take off (incident details here).

Overnight, the airline markings were painted over and what was left of the engines removed. The following morning, my father (who worked nearby), managed to get close-up to the plane with his camera.

CF-TJM was removed from the crash site and repaired. Trans-Canada Airlines became Air Canada, the aircraft resumed service. Tragically, it crashed again, this time in Montreal, on a crew training flight. All three crew members died. Below. A policeman watches as the airframe is jacked up.

This from FLIGHT International magazine for 28 November 1963:

TCA DC-8 Salvage

The Royal School of Military Engineering were called in to help move the TCA DC-8 which made a crash landing after taking off from London Heathrow on November 6. The aircraft has been towed back to the airport on caterpillar track bogies over a specially laid metal road, and is now in a hangar for a repair survey.

Heathrow boy

We lived just over eight miles from Heathrow Airport; my father worked very close to it in the offices of West's Piling on Bath Road. A real treat for me was a visit to the airport. A place of real glamour - international air travel; the Britannic, Europa and Oceanic terminals (which would become renamed more prosaically as Terminals 1, 2 and 3), and the ongoing sense of change (during the 1960s the airport was systematically being extended and developed). To the point that by 1968, Heathrow had more passengers flying through it (14m) than Warsaw's Okęcie did 40 years later (11m in 2008).

The best place of all at Heathrow for me was the Queen's Building - below the control tower, on the viewing gallery. Here, the roar of the engines, the smell of kerosene, the romance of flight was at its most tangible. Above: British European Airways' airliners - Vickers Vanguard (centre and left) and a Vickers Viscount (right). Nearest the camera G-APEO. Photo by my father, Bohdan Dembinski, summer, 1962. I'd have been four at the time.

 It was at Heathrow one day in 1965 that we came to meet my uncle (mother's sister's husband) who'd come over from Canada. He had worked on the Avro Arrow project and brought me as a gift a large, white, plastic kit of the Arrow supersonic interceptor (1/50th scale?) along with some small white lapel pins of the aircraft. While we were waiting to meet him (Oceanic terminal!) we looked into a toy shop where there was a large, tinplate model of a Vickers Viscount in Lufthansa markings, which had operating features such as passenger stairs and retracting undercarriage. Cost a fortune (five or six quid!), so it was not to become mine. Right: A period artifact, still in my possession. The New Esso Guide to Heathrow Airport London, 1968 edition (I recall also having the earlier 1965 edition). On one side of this map, photos of every passenger aircraft type flying into Heathrow (b&w), and colour illustrations showing the livery of every airline flying scheduled flights into Heathrow. The other side, there's a map of the airport, a map showing its location, and an article about the tanker trucks that refuel the airliners - Pythons and Super Pythons. More details on request.

Above: That's me at the controls of a Heli-Jet Mk VII at Queen's Building.

Winter in West London, 1963

January 1963 saw freezing temperatures and heavy snowfalls blanketing the capital. For me, aged five and a quarter, this was an exciting event, made more so by the imminent arrival of my brother (who would be born on 14 January of that year). I clearly recall the atmosphere of those wintery days. The sky was dark grey, England was unprepared (my winter togs were a duffel coat, wellington boots and woollen gloves that quickly got sodden), roads were treacherous. For a child, it was primarily seen in terms of fun, rather than inconvenience. Above: Croft Gardens in the snow (click for full-size image). A snowball fight is underway, while homeowners clear snow from the pavements outside their house. I'm the little boy on the right. Right: The view from our veranda out onto the garden. At the bottom, you can just make out how high the snow piled up against the door. This pic has strong memory associations for me; I recall how excited I was as I stood waiting to rush into the deep snow. I'd never seen so much. That foreboding dark grey sky, the physical cold - and the desire to run shouting through the powder. Photos by my father, Bohdan Dembinski