Mountaineer Elfrida Pigou in a 1957 photo.
Wreckage found on St. Slesse of TCA 810 airplane crash.
Photograph by: HANDOUT, VANCOUVER SUN
Canadian mountaineer Elfrida Pigou made a grisly
discovery while leading a group of climbers up Mount Slesse: the
wreckage of TCA Flight 810, B.C.’s worst air crash.
The
plane crashed on the mountain’s upper slopes, near Chilliwack, on Dec.
9, 1956, killing all 62 people on board. Among the dead were five pro
football players who had been in Vancouver for the Canadian Football
League’s East vs. West all-star game at the new Empire Stadium: Winnipeg
Blue Bomber Calvin Jack Jones and Saskatchewan Roughriders Melvin
Howard Becket, Mario Joseph DeMarco, Gordon Henry Sturtridge and Raymond
Nicholas Syrnyk.
Pigou insisted on carrying a
large piece of the wreckage back down the mountain. It was examined by
transport officials in Vancouver and immediately identified as part of
Flight 810.
The startling discovery made
headlines for days. Reporters and photographers rushed up the Fraser
Valley to Chilliwack. Vancouver Sun reporter and aviation specialist Ron
Thornber flew over Slesse in a small plane. He wrote: “I flew where
death wears a snaggle-tooth grimace high atop Mount Slesse almost within
sight of the broad and peaceful farmlands of the upper Fraser Valley.”
Pigou
would die just three years later, in July 1960, when she and three
other climbers were caught in an avalanche during an ascent of Mount
Waddington.
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