Emotional ceremony honours Forces’ fallen helicopter crew
Social distancing, masks reminders of pandemic at poignant ramp event
TRENTON—A country already struggling with the emotions of a pandemic lockdown, a plane crash in Iran and the worst mass shooting in its history grieved again on Wednesday as it honoured the victims of Canada’s worst military tragedy in more than a decade.
Canadians from coast to coast to coast watched as the six Armed Forces members killed in last week’s helicopter crash off the coast of Greece were welcomed home in a special ramp ceremony at Canadian Forces Base Trenton in Ontario. Reminders of COVID-19 were everywhere as the ceremony began, from the sparse crowd outside CFB Trenton to the masks and physical distancing of the victims’ families, military personnel and government leaders on hand.
Among those there in person were Gov. Gen. Julie Payette and Justin Trudeau, the first Canadian prime minister to attend a ramp ceremony since Paul Martin in January 2004, according to Queen’s University professor Kim Nossal.
The pandemic wasn’t the only difference from previous ramp ceremonies. There were also the pillows and military headdresses, a reminder that the remains of most of those lost have not been recovered.
Under partially cloudy skies, six hearses were lined up on the tarmac awaiting the arrival of the C-17 Globemaster as the families of the dead and missing Forces members met privately with a mask-wearing Trudeau in a building on the edge of the tarmac.
A short time later, the heavy transport aircraft landed and taxied to the loading area.
The first to emerge was the casket of Sub-Lt. Abbigail Cowbrough, the 23-year-old sailor from Halifax whose remains were recovered shortly after the Cyclone helicopter crashed into the Ionian Sea on April 29.
The casket bearing her remains was slowly carried by eight military pallbearers wearing masks to a waiting hearse as a lone bagpiper played a lament. There, Cowbrough’s family was given a chance to pay respects and lay roses on her casket.
And then came the first of the pillows for those now missing and presumed dead. This one bore the headdress of Capt. Brendan Ian MacDonald of New Glasgow, N.S., one of the pilots on board.
As the pillow was placed in the hearse, MacDonald’s family came forward, roses in hand. Then more pillows and headdresses. One for Capt. Kevin Hagen of Nanaimo, B.C., the other pilot on board. One for Capt. Maxime Miron-Morin, the Cyclone’s air combat systems officer from Trois-Rivières, Que. One for Sub-Lt. Matthew Pyke, a naval warfare officer from Truro, N.S. And then the last, for Master Cpl. Matthew Cousins, an airborne electronic sensor operator, originally from Guelph.