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Because of the total devastation of the
aircraft at the instance of its crash into the Atlantic Ocean off Peggy’s cove,
N.S., storage of the aircraft debris became a monumental task.
Several million pieces of debris were
located and retrieved from the crash site. Every piece was examined for fire damage and
then sorted as to its type and possible location within the aircraft. Pieces from the forward upper area were
retained for further examination and possible reconstruction, along with pieces
of key components that needed additional scrutiny.
But several million pieces of
aircraft, components, seats, insulation, and even some cargo (tens
of thousands of metal automobile cigarette lighter units) had to be
stored. At CFB Shearwater, a
hangar was constructed of metal frames and vinyl fabric sheeting that measured
about 25 x 100 m (75 x 300 ft). Heavy
gauge cardboard boxes about 4 ft square by 2.5 ft high were used, positioned on
metal staging. With each of the more
than 700 boxes placed on pallets, they could easily be retrieved and moved
about with a forklift. Indeed, several
of us from the hangar now possess our Provincial certificate for the Use and
Safe Operation of a Forklift, a full day’s course with the Provincial Inspector
of Forklifts.
Every box received an exhibit number and every exhibited item that
was stored in that box was recorded in a database. Each box with non-exhibited items was
recorded with exactly what type of contents it held. Obviously, similar types of contents would be grouped in certain
boxes, such as insulation, wires, cigarette lighters, etc to their specific
boxes. |
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But some boxes contained pieces
of debris that were so small as to be nearly unrecognizable as to specific origin. These boxes contained the debris from the
ocean floor vacuum, and each contains an uncountable number of items, most no
bigger than a thumbnail. In addition,
every box was given a coded number to represent its position by row, elevation,
and box position along that row. Due to
the circumstances of the timeline of the debris retrieval, it was impossible to
group similar type debris boxes in one particular hangar area. Therefore there was a need to keep a tight
control on what each box contained and where each was stored.
During the course of my four years of
working with the material, some boxes and their contents would
become so familiar that I knew their contents from memory. Especially with the reconstruction jig,
several of us could recite from memory exhibit numbers for many of the
exhibits, as will as their exact X-Y-Z position co-ordinates.
Located beside the fabric hangar was a fenced
enclosure of about the same dimensions that contained the larger
items of crash debris. These included the broken
undercarriage units and tires, large pieces of wing, fuselage, tail section,
control surfaces, etc.
In the lower photo can be seen some of the wheels and support
structure of the aircraft's undercarriage, along with two
investigators in the upper right corner. They provide a size
comparison for the pieces. When one sees the tremendous pieces
of steel that were torn and ripped apart, one gains a better
appreciation of the forces that were encountered upon impact. |
