Crater in the Field

The light of morning showed only a few tangled pieces of metal, and an ugly, water-filled crater--6 ft. deep and 150 ft. wide. It was all that remained of Trans-Canada Airlines Flight 831, a DC-8F jet with seven crew and 111 passengers aboard. At 6:30 p.m., the big red-and-silver jetliner lifted off Montreal's rainswept International Airport and banked left on course for Toronto 320 miles to the southwest. Four minutes later, townsfolk in Ste. Therese de Blainville heard a thunderous explosion as the plane slammed into a muddy field. The kerosene-fed fire raged for hours, despite the heavy downpour.

There were no survivors, and no immediate clues to the crash. It was the second-worst commercial single-plane disaster in history, surpassed only by an Air France crash in Paris last year that killed 130.

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