Of rescue and regret
Iremember it clearly, despite it being nearly twenty-five years ago: the call, close to midnight, that jolted me awake; my editor’s hurried tone as she passed on what she knew — that a plane had crashed off the coast of Nova Scotia, near Peggy’s Cove, no word on survivors.
Within minutes, I had left Moncton, New Brunswick, and was racing in a rainstorm towards the crash site. This was before the social media age. I didn’t own a cellphone, and I had no idea of the scale of the tragedy.
About three hours later, I arrived at Peggy’s Cove to a chaotic scene. Everywhere, people were scrambling to help, illuminated by the flashing lights of emergency vehicles. In the distance, rescue helicopters scoured the rough Atlantic, while a flotilla of volunteers — mostly fishermen from around Peggy’s Cove — desperately searched the offshore debris field for someone, anyone, to save.
As I read this issue’s “Wreck & Rescue,” the story of an 1873 shipwreck not far from Peggy’s Cove, I couldn’t help but see parallels to the 1998 Swissair 111 disaster. In 1873, the SS Atlan
tic struck a rock near the shore at Lower Prospect, just ten kilometres as the crow flies from Peggy’s Cove. In both disasters, locals were alerted by the sounds of loud booms — the plane hitting the water in the case of Swissair 111, or the sound of flares exploding above the rapidly sinking SS Atlantic. Both events saw local residents risk their lives to join the rescue effort. And, in the wakes of the disasters, official investigations were launched to try to prevent similar tragedies in the future.
The Swissair 111 and SS Atlantic disasters differed in one major respect — in 1873 rescuers managed to save around 400 of the 950 souls aboard ship. But in 1998 the jumbo jet had hit the water at around 555 kilometres per hour, instantly killing all 229 passengers and crew members.
Elsewhere in this issue, we meet the Canadian who caught the killer of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln; we visit Prince Edward Island’s Green Gables in wartime; and we explore the impacts of British and French colonialism on Canada and India.
When I think back to the Swissair 111 crash, what stays with me is the compassionate, giving spirit of the Nova Scotians who dropped everything to assist on that terrible night. To this day, I can still picture the pained expressions on the faces of the locals who had frantically searched for survivors. Throughout the night, they had called out to the dark waters, hoping to hear voices in return. They wanted so desperately to save even a single life. But it wasn’t to be. That kind of regret stays with you forever.