Noorduyn Norseman Mk.23B

02/28/2016. Remarks by Johan Visschedijk: "This aircraft was sold to Canadian Airways of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, and was registered as CF-BDC on May 3, 1937. Canadian Airways merged into Canadian Pacific Airlines (CPAL) in 1941, the aircraft was registered to CPAL and assigned the fleet number 41. On May 19, 1947, it was reregistered to Central Northern Airways, Winnipeg, Manitoba, only a few months later, during a wind storm on August 5, 1947, it was submerged at a dock at Hudson, Ontario. During the salvage attempts it was further damaged and written off, as described by eyewitness Don Starratt, an uncle of our contributor Bob Starratt."

(Bob Starratt Collection)

"The aircraft had just unloaded a shipment of fish to Bowman Fisheries in Hudson and was tied into the dock with its tail to the wind. The wind lifted the plane up vertically and a post on the dock penetrated the windshield and it sat twisted onto the dock. Right adjacent to the dock was a permanently set steam powered crane used to lift boats out, boats from the train to the water or out of the water and heavy mining equipment from trains onto barges for their trip to the Red Lake and Pickle Lake goldfields.

As the aircraft stood on its nose the front float compartments filled with water. A bar was placed through the bracket on the tail that was used to swing the tail around on the ice in the winter for instance. It was strong enough to support manual lifting of the tail only but the crane was hooked to it anyway. Because the front of the floats were not snubbed to the shore in front of it, as the crane started to move the tail, the angle of the plane was such that it flopped over onto its back partially onto the dock. Apparently there was only a small boat to try and keep it away from the dock and it was not up to the task.

(Bob Starratt Collection)

Read the type remarks on page 11930.