Comments on: Trans-Canada Air Lines

By: Barbara Lavoie

Barbara Lavoie — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 05:08:48 +0000

Further to my comment, my father joined TCA in 1939.

By: Barbara Lavoie

Barbara Lavoie — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 05:06:30 +0000

Oops corrected my Trans-Canada Airway research website address! Thanks.

By: Barbara Lavoie

Barbara Lavoie — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 04:43:24 +0000

Thank you for this sad, surprising and informative article. After finding my father’s photo album of his stay as a labourer at a relief camp in Madawaska, ON from 1934 to 1936, one of more 160 camps across Canada that built emergency landing fields, I began researching the government’s initiative.

Without the government’s Unemployed Single Men’s Relief Scheme, the Trans-Canada Airway would not have been completed. And the creation of the commercial airline Trans-Canada Air Lines and its first flight in 1937 might not have been achieved.

Incidentally, he proudly joined TCA as an aircraft mechanic and retired 36 years later. Did working on a landing field influence his decision? Perhaps…

By: Brian Beesley

Brian Beesley — Sun, 22 Oct 2023 17:46:30 +0000

Used to fly TCA between Victoria, Pat Bay, and Vancouver when Iwent to school in the 50s. The one way fare was $5. 🙂

By: Mollie Pearson

Mollie Pearson — Sat, 29 Jul 2023 20:00:27 +0000

My grandparents Alex and Mary Gray were scheduled to be on that flight. They were in Toronto for their daughter’s funeral. At the last minute my grandmother couldn’t find her hat pin and refused to leave. Good thing she always got her way.

By: Mike Milne

Mike Milne — Thu, 29 Jun 2023 17:11:56 +0000

Sad about that flight. Condolences to those affected. Anyone reading this know of the first jet from Toronto to Vancouver? I think it was in 1959. I was a small boy aboard that flight. We received commemorative wine glasses in boxes placed on each seat before we boarded. Originally I thought it was TWA, but a retired employee has corrected me.

By: Dale Brandon

Dale Brandon — Mon, 08 May 2023 04:56:38 +0000

Don, Contact “The Canadian Maple Wings Association” which is printed at the top of the cover of the book. That is the alumni for flight attendants.

By: Ronald Wilson

Ronald Wilson — Sun, 07 May 2023 20:04:32 +0000

I have to correct my last statement about Miss Hamblin. It turns out that she was the daughter of Jack Hamblin( my Grandmothers second husband and not his sister. He died before she was found btw

By: Mary Visentin

Mary Visentin — Sun, 07 May 2023 17:12:32 +0000

I remember the same thing happened in 1963, a TCA flight was scheduled to leave Dorval airport. A family friend was driving to Montreal to take it. My dad had offered to drive her to the airport and park her car in our driveway in Montreal. She was delayed at the border crossing into Canada, which made her later than she had planned. Although my dad went as fast as he could, the plane was taking off as they arrived at the airport. Our friend was very up set. She rescheduled to leave the next day. As they were driving back to our house they heard of the crash in Saint Therese, the one she should have been on. She changed her tune.

By: Don Manning

Don Manning — Sun, 07 May 2023 09:26:40 +0000

This came up for me today, thank you for posting! My mother was Delia Altwasser, she joined TCA I think in 1938 or 1939 and left in 1943 when she married my father. I’d be interested in reading the book, I think she is third from the left on the cover. She was one of the ladies who stayed at the Santa Fe on Oak St., she once told me it was still in use until sometime in the sixties. She regularly flew between Winnipeg and Vancouver, including Lethbridge, she was early enough to wear the original tan uniforms. She passed away in Vancouver in 2016, aged 97. BTW, I think there was another pilot named Pike at TCA, who she knew, she knew all the crew on Flight 3.