Post Category : Local Archaeology
Slave Lake Plane Crash
By Corey Cookson on November 2, 2016
In the summer of 2013, Vince and I were walking through a harvested cutblock south of Slave Lake and we noticed something big and white on a high hill along the tree line. At first we thought it was some sort of tarp but as we got closer we realized it was the broken tail portion of an airplane. We were both pretty excited to find the wreckage because a plane crash is something we don’t find everyday.
We documented the site with photographs and mapped it as we would a normal historic site. We found pieces of the wreckage scattered over 100 m along the hill. The site seems to be a local hangout as evident by the bullet holes in the tail and several beer cans scattered around the wreckage.
Thankfully the registration number, C-GWYD, was still visible on the tail portion and were able to learn more about the crash. On December 29, 1975 a Beechcraft 99 en route to Peace River from Edmonton crashed into a high hill overlooking Slave Lake to the north. The plane came to a rest upside down and sadly both pilots, Captain Bill Groesnick and Co-pilot Banshi Ghelani, were killed upon impact. However, all seven passengers survived with minor injuries.
When discussing historic resources we often attribute it’s value to the age of the site. The Slave Lake plane crash site, while only 40 years old, demonstrates that something can have historic value because of it’s significance to a local community or a historic event.
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