Touch-and-Go Tragedy: The crash of Air Canada flight 621

On the 5th of July 1970, an Air Canada DC-8 plunged burning from the sky over Brampton, Ontario, leaving behind little more than a smoking crater in a field. The crash claimed the lives of 109 people, a toll which remains the worst in Air Canada’s history, even after more than 50 years. The sequence of events which brought it down was unique, but almost banally simple: the plane landed hard, damaging a fuel tank, then lifted off again with its right wing on fire. Before it could circle around to land again, the wing failed, and the plane, crippled beyond all hope, spiraled horribly to the ground. As it turned out, everything began with a single, ill-timed mistake: the First Officer, while attempting to arm the ground spoilers to deploy after landing, accidentally deployed them in flight instead, causing the plane to lose lift and crash to the ground. In a fit of apologia, the First Officer appeared to blame himself for the unfortunate error, but was he really at fault? The investigation would reveal that the answer was not quite so simple, as the board of inquiry discovered a substantial design flaw in the DC-8 which the manufacturer had not only overlooked, but seemingly hid from its customers. <a href="https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/touch-and-go-tragedy-the-crash-of-air-canada-flight-621-ecd4c5ab831">Website</a>