Air Canada Flight 189 was an Air Canada flight from Ottawa to Vancouver via Toronto and Winnipeg. On June 26, 1978 it crashed on takeoff in Toronto killing two passengers.
During takeoff at 8:15 a.m. one of the DC-9-32's tires burst and partially disintegrated, firing chunks of rubber into the landing gear mechanism. This set off an "unsafe gear" warning, prompting the pilot to abort the takeoff. However, the aircraft was already two thirds along the length of runway 24R and travelling at 154 knots (285 km/h). It could not stop before the end of the runway, and plunged off the edge of an embankment still travelling at 60 knots (110 km/h), eventually coming to a rest in the Etobicoke Creek ravine. The plane broke in three pieces, but despite its full load of fuel did not catch fire. The accident was visible from Highway 401, which runs alongside the south side of the airport. (Note: At the time of the crash runway 24R was numbered 24L, and the present runway 23 was numbered 24R. This was changed when a new runway was constructed on the south side of the airfield, and was numbered 24L)
The plane was destroyed and two passengers were killed: 73 year old J. Frank Scrase of Victoria died when a rib punctured his heart, and 45 year old Irwin Theodore Childs of North York died of suffocation when he was wedged beneath the seat in front of him. Both were seated at the site of the forward split in the fuselage. Most of the other 105 passengers and crew aboard were injured.
The subsequent investigation found multiple causes of the accident. It recommended greater scrutiny be given to the tires. The pilot, Reginald W. Stewart, delayed four seconds after the warning light came on before he chose to abort the takeoff; a more immediate decision would have prevented the accident. The investigators also criticized the level of training in emergency braking. The presence of the ravine at the end of the runway was also questioned, but nothing was done. This failure to expand the airport's overshoot zone was raised when Air France Flight 358 plunged into the same ravine 27 years later.
Although it is customary for airlines to retire a flight number after a major incident, Air Canada continues to use Flight 189 for its Ottawa-Vancouver route and it uses and Airbus A321 aircraft instead of a McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32. However, the flight no longer has stopovers in Toronto and Winnipeg.
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