Christmas Miracle Story, My Dad & The Worst Plane Crash In Canadian History

This is a true story.

My father worked for TCA, our national airlines of Canada. He was first a flight dispatcher, signalling planes in and our of our older Montreal airport, and got to know almost everyone who worked for the company in its early stage.

You my readers may find this unbelievable, but we used to go up to the front of planes, part the heavy curtains, and say hello to the pilots of large planes that flew over Canada, and also to London and Paris. Dad knew the staff on the planes and in the airports too. The food was also great.

Anyway, he was at the smaller Vancouver airport, waiting to board a plane in December, a short time before Christmas, to my mother and our family in Montreal....3000 miles away. He had been on a business trip staying at the Georgia Hotel, a landmark downtown. It was around dinner time.

He was happy to see a friend from the company, travelling on a holiday pass. The man was debating with the boarding area agents, as only half of his family could board, there were not enough open seats. His family was travelling on Stand By as they had free tickets.

My father behaved in an uncharacteristic way, he valued his time, and wanted to get back home quickly, too. He suddenly said to his friend, You should travel together as a family, I will give you my seat, and I can travel out tomorrow morning to Montreal.

The family of four, mother, father, and two children, was overjoyed. My father then took a taxi back to the hotel, and did not phone my mother, as long distance calls were rarer then, and quite expensive. Of course, no computers, no Internet.

Later that stormy, wintry night, the TCA plane flew head on into the Rocky Mountains, killing everyone. The bodies could not be recovered until spring. The nation was shocked and traumatized by the tragic magnitude of it. Our airlines was generally very safe, Canadians believed their efficiency and pragmatism connected with lives of safety and security. And right at Christmas time.

My mother was sewing doll clothes for Christmas, and heard first of the crash from a phone call on our old black land phone. Our great joy was somewhat muted, and my father suffered from having giving this ticket, though he kept his thoughts to himself.

Many years later, when he was 75 years old, he flew with his best friend in a single engine plane, as a hobby flier, into the same part of the Rocky Mountains, where the friend of his youth had died.

I will be back on Monday, he said to me and my then boyfriend, And if not, you will read it about in the newspaper. Dad laughed.

My dad was daring at sports, and he had a great sense of humor, but this unusual story is one of my favorite memories of him. It was the light from above that entered my father, that light we cannot understand, that saved his life in a moment of spiritual grace.

I wish all my Internet friends here, some grace and light, not only now, but at all times.

Love, Arielle

Hong Kong 2021.