Memorial site: Alberta apologizes to families for cleaning up plane wreckage
WHITECOURT, Alta. — The province of Alberta is apologizing to the families of three people killed in a plane crash almost 65 years ago after cleaning up the wreckage without warning.
A memorial site in central Alberta included the debris of the small plane that went down on Nov. 22, 1953.
The Cesna-180 was on a mercy flight from Grande Prairie to Edmonton because polio patient Lloyd Williams, 33, needed to be put on an iron lung. Others on board included the pilot Gordon MacDonald and Dr. Donald Wilson, who volunteered to make the flight.
They crashed about 15 kilometres north of Whitecourt, Alta., and all three men were killed. Their families put up a memorial plaque and scattered ashes nearby.