Home » Local History Articles » LOOKING BACK: DOWNSVIEW AIRPORT FATAL PLANE CRASH, 1956

TORONTO STAR, FEB. 15, 1956

LOOKING BACK: DOWNSVIEW AIRPORT FATAL PLANE CRASH, 1956

Susan Goldenberg from a tip by fellow NYHS board member Linda Gargaro

Downsview Airport experienced its only fatal plane crash in its years of operation 1929 to 1996, close to 70 years ago on February 14, 1956. Made by de Havilland Canada whose plant was at the airport, the single turbine engine, propeller-driven, all-metal, high-winged short take-of-and-landing utility transport aircraft called the “Otter” was on a demonstration flight for the U.S. Army which had ordered 90.

At 3:38 in the afternoon, 17 minutes after departure, around Keele and Finch, the left wing fell off. It sliced into the fuselage and tail and the plane spiralled into a field just yards from a farm house and exploded. A Royal Canadian Air Force ambulance from the airport raced to the scene but all four people on board had been killed. Nobody in the farmhouse was hurt. Debris stretched to an oil refinery a mile east..

The crash occurred on the very day the plane was to be officially handed over to representatives from the U.S. Army’s 14th aviation company based at Fort Riley, Kansas.
The dead pilot was Bill Ferderber of Val d’Or, Quebec, a de Havilland test pilot for the past four years who’d won the Distinguished Flying Cross during the Second World War, been a bush pilot and flown planes for other companies. Ferderber had three young children. The three other victims, all from the 14th army aviation company, were: Major Aaron G. Atkinson, the commanding officer, Captain James P. Dowling, and Captain Louis E. Durand. The U.S. Army gave some financial compensation to all the families.

People living near the airport who’d been complaining of the noise and frequency of military jet flights to and from the airport alleged that wake turbulence from a military jet caused the Otter’s breakup and accused the airport of a coverup when it denied this.

When a similar tragedy occurred two months later to an RCAF Otter from the RCAF base at Gander Airport, Newfoundland, the circumstances of 55-3252 were re-examined to see if there were similarities. It was found that in both instances there was the same mechanical flaw – a defective valve in the flaps.

TORONTO STAR, FEB. 15, 1956, P. 1

Page 3

TORONTO STAR, FEB. 15, 1956