Canadian Pacific Air Lines Flight 108

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Canadian Pacific Air Lines Flight 108
YTM Aircraft 936.jpg

A Douglas C-47 of the Canadian Pacific Air Lines
Accident summary
Accident type Bomb attack
place near Sault-aux-Cochon , Province of Quebec , CanadaCanada 1921Canada 
date September 9, 1949
Fatalities 23
Survivors 0
Aircraft
Aircraft type United States 48United States Douglas DC-3 / C-47-DL
operator Canada 1921Canada Canadian Pacific Air Lines
Mark Canada 1921Canada CF-CUA
Departure airport Montréal Airport , CanadaCanada 1921Canada 
Stopover L'Ancienne-Lorette Airport , Quebec , CanadaCanada 1921Canada 
Destination airport Baie Comeau Airport , CanadaCanada 1921Canada 
Passengers 19th
crew 4th
Lists of aviation accidents

On September 9, 1949, a Douglas DC-3 / C-47-DL had an accident on Canadian Pacific Air Lines Flight 108 from Québec to Baie Comeau after it was torn up by a bombing in the air. All 23 occupants of the machine died in the attack. Joseph-Albert Guay , who acted out of greed, was identified as the perpetrator . It was the first solved case of an attack on civil aviation in North America.

plane

The aircraft was a Douglas DC-3 / C-47-DL , which was built at the Douglas Aircraft Company's plant in Long Beach , California and sent to the United States Army on July 13, 1942 with the serial number 4518 and the military aircraft registration number 41-18456 Air Forces (USAAF) was extradited. In October 1942 the machine was handed over to the 4th Troop Carrier Squadron, 62rd Troop Carrier Group , based in Keevil , Wiltshire , England . The machine was involved in the offensive in North West Africa in November 1942. On November 15, 1942, the aircraft was relocated to Algeria and in July 1943 to Tunisia . The machine was then stationed between September 1943 and November 1945 at bases in Sicily and Italy. A little later, the C-47 was categorized as a USAAF surplus and demolished. On August 31, 1946, the machine was sold to Canadian Pacific Airlines . After a conversion to the civilian DC-3C, the machine was approved on February 6, 1947 with the new aircraft registration CF-CUA and received the internal fleet number 280 . The C-47 was powered by two Pratt & Whitney R-1830-92 Twin Wasp double radial engines , each with an output of 1,200 hp.

Passengers and crew

There was a crew of four on board the machine. At the time of the accident there were 15 adult passengers and four children on board. Among the adult passengers were three US representatives from the Kennecott Utah Copper Corporation, including its outgoing President E. Tappan Stannard, his designated successor Arthur D. Storke and Vice President Russell Johnston Parker, father of the typographer Mike Parker .

Flight plan

Canadian Pacific Air Lines Flight 108 was supposed to run from Montréal to Baie Comeau . A scheduled stop in Québec was planned on the route.

Flight history and crash

The machine completed the first part of the flight without any special incidents. The departure in Quebec was delayed by five minutes to 10:25 a.m. After the machine had covered 66 kilometers of the route from Québec to Baie Comeau, it was suddenly torn apart in the air at 10:35 a.m. local time at Cap Tourmente , near the town of Sault-au-Cochon in the Charlevoix region and fell to the ground. The wreckage hit a rocky hill.

Five employees of the Canadian Railways, who happened to be nearby, rushed to the crash site immediately after the impact. However, they found no living - the explosion and impact killed all 23 people on board the machine. One of the witnesses said in an interview with Montreal's La Patrie newspaper that the men found severed arms, legs and heads at the crash site. The front part of the machine made an intact impression. The bodies were piled on top of each other in this area, as if they had been thrown forward in the crash. Since the men could no longer provide any help on site, they then notified the railway administration.

Investigations and Authorship

The police were able to secure traces of explosives at the crash site right at the beginning of their investigation. Since the incident occurred in the early days of the Cold War , it was initially assumed that the incident was a coordinated attack by the communist bloc. However, it was soon discovered that a time bomb had detonated in the suitcase of a 28-year-old passenger named Rita Morel Guay. The explosion had occurred in the front luggage compartment No. 1. Her husband, 31-year-old Joseph-Albert Guay (born September 23, 1918), was identified as the mastermind.

The machine started with a delay of 5 minutes. This delay had thwarted Joseph-Albert Albert Guay's plan to explode the machine over the St. Lawrence River . If the machine had crashed into the deep waters of the river, a forensic examination with the methods of the time would have been impossible.

It could be determined that a woman dressed in black had posted a package as air freight for the flight before the aircraft left. The flight was ultimately delayed because the woman arrived at the plane when it was about to take off. The flight attendant quickly took the parcel and stowed it in storage compartment 1. The courier was identified a little later as 43-year-old Marguerite Ruest-Pitre. During police interrogations, Ruest-Pitre confirmed that she had brought the package on board, but said she believed it contained a fragile statue. She stated that the consignment had been posted by a certain Delphis Bouchard of Saint-Simeon and was to be delivered to Albert Plouffe in Baie Comeau. During interrogations, Bouchard denied having sent a package, the recipient could not be identified under the name in Baie Comeau. Ms. Ruest-Pitre's acquaintance, 31-year-old Joseph-Albert Guay, asked her to bring the package on board, and in return he agreed to cancel her existing debt of US $ 600. It later emerged that the courier's brother, Généreux Ruest-Pitre, a tuberculosis- afflicted employee of Joseph-Albert Guay, had designed the bomb. To build the bomb, Généreux used batteries, an alarm clock, and several sticks of dynamite - materials that his sister had previously obtained for him.

A few days after the accident, Marguerite Ruest-Pitre took an overdose of sleeping pills, but the attempted suicide failed and the woman was saved. During the police interrogations at the hospital, she stated that Joseph-Albert Guay had told her, in a state of almost hysterics, that he had hidden a bomb in the package and that he had advised her to better suicide before going on the crime will be charged.

The watch and jewelery seller Joseph-Albert Guay was arrested on September 23, 1949, just two weeks after the crime. His motive for the crime was, on the one hand, that he wanted to marry another woman, his 19-year-old lover Marie-Ange Robitaille, and on the other hand, greed. The Guays married in 1940, their daughter was born in 1945, and Joseph-Albert Guay also opened his jewelry store that year. In the years that followed, the Guays' marriage fell into a crisis, as Joseph-Albert entered extramarital affairs, and the jewelry store was in the red, which led to debts. In 1948, Guay had an affair with Marie-Ange Robataille, then 17 years old. Since then, he has visited her two or three times a week at her parents' house, where the young woman lived. She introduced him as "Robert Angers" to hide the fact that Guay was a married man. Guay bought his lover an engagement ring. When Rita Morel Guay found out about her husband's affair, she went to the home of the Robataille family and told the young woman's parents the truth about her husband. The Robatailles then expelled their daughter from their house, whereupon Joseph-Albert organized an emergency shelter for her with his friend Marguerite Ruest-Pitre. Later he rented an apartment for himself and his lover in Sept-Îles, 500 kilometers east, and commuted between his wife and his lover. This constellation displeased both women. The marriage quarrel in the Guay house intensified and Rita Morel moved into her parents' house with their daughter, while Marie-Ange, disappointed, ended the relationship with Joseph-Albert. Joseph-Albert was devastated and decided to get rid of his wife.

After Généreux Ruest had finished designing the bomb, Joseph-Albert Guay persuaded his wife to take a flight to Baie Comeau on the pretext that she had to pick up jewels for his business. At the time, the Canadian mining towns of Sept-Îles and Baie Comeau were booming and the local jewelry business was booming. Joseph-Albert Guay had taken out a life insurance policy for $ 10,000 in her name before his wife left.

With the bomb attack, Guay wanted to avoid a divorce from his wife, which in the province of Québec at the time would have resulted in exclusion from the Catholic Church . Joseph-Albert Guay also wanted to have his wife's life insurance policy paid out and to leave with his lover.

Legal processing

During the course of the negotiations, it was revealed that Joseph-Albert Guay had offered another friend $ 500 in April 1949 if he would kill his wife Rita by poisoning. The friend rejected the offer.

A forensic doctor in court suggested that Guay was inspired by a similar incident that year. On March 7, 1949, another Philippine Airlines Douglas C-47 had been assassinated ; this was also an act of relationship and attempted insurance fraud.

In February 1950 Joseph-Albert Guay was sentenced to death. Guay was executed by hanging on January 12, 1951 . His last words were “Bien, au moins, je meurs célébre!” (“Well, at least I'm dying a celebrity!”). After his conviction, Guay stated that Généreux Ruest and Marguerite Ruest-Pitre had helped him plan the crime. The Ruest siblings were arrested in June 1950 and indicted in separate proceedings and also sentenced to death by the rope, Généreux in November 1950, Marguerite in March 1951. Généreux Ruest was hanged in July 1952. Marguerite Ruest-Pitre denied her guilt until the very end, her request for revision was rejected. On January 9, 1953, she was the last woman to be executed in Canada.

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