Qualla: Queen Charlotte Airlines Flight 102

Queen Charlotte Airlines Flight 102: Introduction

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Julian Herzog (Website), CC BY 4.0. The Consolidated Canso A was never supposed to be there. On the night of October 17, 1951, the converted flying boat designated CF-FOQ should have been approaching Vancouver, not the darkened slopes of Mount Benson above Nanaimo. But somewhere over the black waters between Kitimat and the southern tip of Vancouver Island, pilot Douglas Duncan McQueen made a navigational error that would kill everyone aboard -- twenty passengers and three crew -- in what was then the deadliest aviation disaster in British Columbia's history.

Image: Julian Herzog (Website) | CC BY 4.0

Queen Charlotte Airlines Flight 102: A Flying Boat Called Polar Bear

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Julian Herzog (Website), CC BY 4.0. CF-FOQ had lived several lives before its last flight. Manufactured in 1941 as a Consolidated Canso A -- the Canadian-built variant of the famous PBY Catalina flying boat -- the aircraft served through the war years before the Hudson's Bay Company purchased it in 1947, naming it ...

Image: Julian Herzog (Website) | CC BY 4.0

Queen Charlotte Airlines Flight 102: Twenty Workers Heading Home

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Julian Herzog (Website), CC BY 4.0. The passengers that evening were aluminum workers -- employees of Alcan, the company transforming the wilderness around Kitimat and Kemano into one of the world's largest aluminum smelting operations. Seven boarded at Kemano and thirteen more joined at Kitimat, all bound for Vanc...

Image: Julian Herzog (Website) | CC BY 4.0

Queen Charlotte Airlines Flight 102: Night, Cloud, and a Fatal Mistake

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Julian Herzog (Website), CC BY 4.0. What went wrong unfolded in darkness. The flight departed southbound under visual flight rules, but conditions deteriorated as the aircraft moved down the coast. Visibility shrank. The investigation that followed concluded that McQueen likely mistook the lights of Nanaimo for tho...

Image: Julian Herzog (Website) | CC BY 4.0

Queen Charlotte Airlines Flight 102: A Province Reckons with Its Skies

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Julian Herzog (Website), CC BY 4.0. The crash reverberated across British Columbia. At the time, it was the deadliest aviation accident the province had ever seen -- a grim milestone for a region that depended on bush pilots and flying boats to connect its scattered communities. The loss of twenty Alcan workers hit...

Image: Julian Herzog (Website) | CC BY 4.0