On September 17, 1946, a four-engine Douglas DC-4 of the Belgian airline took off from Brussels, Belgium, bound for New York.
The plane was carrying 44 people on board. It made its first stop at Shannon International Airport in western Ireland, from where it took off at 8:00 p.m. that day for its next stop, in Gander, Newfoundland, then a territory of the United Kingdom (it became part of Canada in 1949). Upon arrival in Newfoundland in the early hours of 18 September, the DC-4 (registration OO-CBG and construction number 42986) encountered very bad weather.
Due to poor visibility, the DC-4 veered off course in the middle of the night and crashed 22 miles (35 km) southwest of Gander Airport in a remote, inaccessible area. A TWA DC-4 flying the route located the crash site and circled the area until a US Coast Guard PBY-5A Catalina seaplane arrived. The 18 survivors were rescued by US seaplanes landing at Dead Wolf Pond, about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from the crash site.
It should be noted that this was the first rescue operation to use helicopters on a large scale, specifically the Sikorsky R-4 Hoverfly of the US Coast Guard (you can read a full article about this operation on the blog This Day in Aviation). Ultimately, it was decided to bury the 26 people who died there next to the wreckage of the plane, due to the difficulties in transporting the remains (many of them charred). One of the survivors ended up dying from his injuries. Today, the cemetery and the remains of the plane are still there.
As a curiosity, the site of the accident was named St. Martin's in the Woods, in honor of the doctor Samuel P. Martin, who at the time of the accident was a Captain of the US Medical Corps and was stationed in Argentia, Newfoundland. The survivors wanted to thank him in this way for everything he did for them. Last Saturday, the Youtube channel Abandoned Urbex Canada published a video showing the current state of the cemetery and the plane:
You can see some screenshots from this video here. Below these lines, the cemetery with 26 of the deceased and the remains of the plane in which they died.
The cemetery has already been covered by vegetation. It is located in a very remote place, only accessible via a dirt road, and as it was an accident that occurred 78 years ago, few people come to visit the deceased who are buried there.
The remains of the DC-4. We can see the tail section on the right and the wings on the left. The Sabena emblem can still be seen on the tail.
A memorial commemorates the victims of the crash, next to one of the plane's four propellers. On the left are the names of the deceased and on the right are the names of the survivors. The memorial was erected by the 103 Search and Rescue Unit (now 103 Search and Rescue Squadron) of the Royal Canadian Air Force, based in Gander, Newfoundland.
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