60th anniversary of Orlans convent jet crash brings back mystery, tragedy

Mo Aller arrived at Ottawa's Uplands Royal Canadian Air Force Base in mid-May 1956.

He was still getting settled with his pregnant wife and two kids when a CF-100 jet from the base crashed into a convent in Orlans, causing an explosion and fire that killed 13 people on the ground and two of his peers.

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• 50 years later, convent crash still remembered

After playing his bagpipes at a ceremony on Sunday to mark the 60th anniversary of the crash, the 86-year-old said he still thinks about what may have gone wrong.

"If they had an in-flight problem with the aircraft they certainly would have radioed or if it was something they couldn't handle they could have ejected," he said.

"For an aircraft to go in like that, at night, and just hit this place is just unbelievable. It's a terrible accumulation of coincidences."

The post-crash investigation came back inconclusive.

"When the aircraft hit at that speed and given the explosion that followed, there wouldn't have been a whole lot left," said Canadian War Museum historian Andrew Burtch, who grew up a 15-minute walk from the crash site.

"There wasn't anything like a black box that would give any clear indication of what happened. The real knowledge of what happened rests with those two flying officers who were killed in the crash."

Part of community and Cold War history

Burtch said the jets had been dispatched to check out an unidentified aircraft, which wasn't uncommon during the Cold War.

The aircraft turned out to be a transport plane that was ahead of schedule on its flight plan.

"This took place in the context of an air defence mission during a period where the skies were being very anxiously watched for any sign of possible Soviet incursion over Canadian airspace as an early warning of a possible nuclear attack," said Burtch.

Burtch said it's a tragic chapter in the history of both the community and the Cold War, which was echoed by Air Force veteran and Orlans resident Gilbert DesBecquets after the ceremony.

"The [nuns] had a big role in [the development of Orlans], they are the ones who owned the land here, who employed a lot of people in their farming areas," he said.

"It's important that the people of Orlans, because there are few people that are actually from Orlans but [rather] they move into Orleans, remember a bit of the past, a significant event in the life of this community which we all love."

A new building went up on the convent site in 1965.

It became a hospice the next year and today is a long-term care home called Saint-Louis Residence run by Bruyre Continuing Care.