Commemorative plaque to pay tribute to victims of unsolved 1941 air disaster
The tragic deaths. The fiery carnage. The search for answers after an American Airlines flight dropped out of the sky over Elgin County in October 1941, killing all 20 people on board. More than 75 years on, Southwold remembers.
Now the rural township west of St. Thomas wants to recognize this painful piece of its past with a new commemorative plaque, an installation to mark the site of what was, at the time, the worst aviation disaster in Canadian history.
“It was tragic,” said Southwold Coun. Gayle Bogart.
Bogart said her father-in-law was one of the first people at the scene when the passenger plane en route from Buffalo to Detroit crashed Oct. 30, 1941 — killing 17 passengers and three crew members. “It’s just down the road from where he lived,” she said.
The people who rushed to the scene on Third Line found sheer carnage; a plane so badly damaged by the impact and by fire, it took time to identify the passengers. An investigation into the crash never determined its cause. Recently, Southwold politicians learned its school committee was interested in installing memorial signage at the site, according to a staff report.
Since Third Line is a county road, township staff got clearance from Elgin County officials for the sign. County staff suggested a local landowner may be willing to install parking on their property for visitors, according to the Southwold staff report.
The doomed plane was making a regular, multi-stop flight from New York’s La Guardia Airport to Chicago, according to a Wikipedia page. It had stops in Newark, New Jersey; Buffalo; Detroit and South Bend, Ind.