On Sunday November 2, 1930 a northwest North York farmer’s cabbage field near the Toronto Aerodrome located in North York at Dufferin and Wilson, became an inferno when a stunt flying joyride plane spiraled into it. All on board, the pilot Harry Teggart and his two passengers sisters Jean and Kathleen McColl were killed. Harry, 24, was an experienced air mail pilot and stunt flyer; Jean, 24, a teacher; and Kathleen, 19, a secretary. Teggart had often flown the plane, a “Pitcairn” biplane wing, open cockpit, three seats –pilot at back, two passengers at front.
.. Stunt flying was a popular entertainment in the1920s and early 1930s and Teggart had taken the sisters before, doing barrel rolls, spins, and loops.
Onlookers recalled that the girls had said, “You can’t scare us, Harry,” the same smiling boast they always made, and that he’d joked back, “I’ll thrill you today.”
According to witnesses, Teggart flew to an altitude of 2,000 feet, the usual height then at which to undertake stunts, then circled the area for about ten minutes, “jazzing around.”. Suddenly the plane nosedived, then cartwheeled into the cabbage field. The Toronto Star wrote: “ Cabbages in the field where the machine crashed were cut cleanly in half as though by a huge knife. It buried its nose in the ground and then flipped over into an upright position, the metal frame twisted and the undercarriage crumpled. Simultaneously with the crash the gasoline tanks in the wing split, a shower of gasoline was cascaded down on the motor, and in a split second it burst into flames.”
Because the plane was burned and fragmented it couldn’t be determined whether the crash cause was due to mechanical problems or pilot error or both.
Colonel Douglas Joy, director of aviation at the aerodrome, said the tragedy demonstrated the dangers of stunt flying. “I hope the newspapers will hammer home that stunting is the cause of virtually all aviation accidents such as this. In nine out of ten accidents the fault may be placed to stunting. There’s nothing wrong with flying if it’s done safely and sanely.”