July
31, 1950
9
Killed at Joint Arctic Weather Station
On 31 July 1950, seven Royal Canadian Air Force 405 Squadron Greenwood crew members
and two civilian passengers aboard an RCAF Lancaster aircraft died in a crash
while making a low-level parachute airdrop of supplies to the newly-established
weather station in Alert, Northwest Territories, Canada. The parachute became
entangled in the plane's tail and this caused the crash. The nine men were laid
to their final rest near the western side of the Alert runway and a Memorial
Cairn was erected next to their graves to honor them.
The Alert weather station was first established by the
Canadian government in 1950, as a weather station of the Joint Arctic Weather
Station (JAWS) system, and it was operated by the RCAF --the initial landing by
Canadian and US air forces took place on 9 April 1950 from Thule, Greenland.
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