One Mystery Gains A Clue While Another Remains Unsolved

A portion of an aircraft’s wing found in a remote area of Nova Scotia provided a piece of the puzzle to the investigation of a crash that happened over thirty years ago.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Constable Dal Hutchinson reports that a battered wing was found by a crew cutting a logging road through a forested area about four miles west of Joggins, Nova Scotia.

"I learned about it by a third party. That person asked me to look into it because he had relatives that were lost when an aircraft went down off Advocate (Harbour) in 1967," Hutchinson said.

The Nova Scotia Chronicle Herald reports the missing aircraft was described as a Beechcraft that had taken off from Halifax on July 23, 1967 destined for Sussex, New Brunswick, with five people aboard.

"That plane has never been found. The family was hoping the wing came from the missing plane, [and] could help solve the mystery of why it crashed and could help bring closure to the families of the people on board that disappeared when it crashed," Hutchinson said.

Visiting the crash site, Hutchinson took pictures of the wing and sent them to the Transportation Safety Board of Canada. Safety Board spokesman Mike Cunningham said officials quickly determined the wing did not belong to the missing Beechcraft. "We determined it came from a Cessna Cardinal," he said.

Retrieving the wing from the woods last week, TSB officials began trying to determine its origin. Markings on it indicated it probably came from the United States, the CH reported.

Halifax Rescue Co-ordination Centre records showed that a Cessna 177 Cardinal from the US had crashed near Joggins in 1976, near where the wing was recently found. "Part numbers from the wing confirmed it had come from the Cessna," Cunningham said.

Records of the TSB investigation revealed the Cessna departed Northwood Memorial Airport near Norfolk, MS on July 8, 1976. Despite a massive search by American officials, the crash site was not discovered until spotted by a Canadian military aircraft flying over it three and a half months later, the CH said.

Stories in The Chronicle Herald in October 1976 identified the pilot of the Cessna as 33-year-old Robert Lindsted from Framingham, MS. He had been a pilot for seven years and held an instrument rating.

The RCMP investigating the crash in 1976 found a "heavily damaged aircraft that had nosedived into the ground," the newspaper articles said. "Police found jeans, tennis shoes and a wallet containing Mr. Lindsted’s pilot’s license at the crash site, but it was another month before skeletal remains were found about two miles away."

Cunningham said, "The pilot’s injuries, and the fact that his clothes were found at the crash site and not with his body, suggested the pilot jumped naked from his plane at a great height."

The CH reports Hutchinson is happy that TSB investigators were able to determine the origin of the wing, but wishes it had come from the missing Beechcraft. "It would have given the family some closure, but for now the mystery of that crash remains," he said.

FMI: www.tsb.gc.ca