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1985 - March 1st - American Airlines executive Don Carty (pictured) appointed President of CP Air. 1989 – April 10th - Aircraft fin 909 was damaged by fire while unattended between flights at Schiphol. The damage was repaired and returned to service July1989. |
This story found in the "Canadi>n Contact" magazine issue dated July 1989. |
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In the early days of our North Pacific services, hardly anybody wanted a maintenance job at Shemya, the remote Aleutian Island where we had fuel stops to and from Tokyo.
"In 1952 I bid for Tokyo but it was taken by somebody else", he said, "At the same time, Shemya was up for bid. It was such an isolated place that nobody wanted to go. Those were the DC-4 days and as I was qualified, they asked if I would go for a six-month period". He agreed. He had a wedding date set just after the six-month period, so why not go to Shemya and make some money, because you can't spend it there. "Well, that was a mistake, because there was a lot of gambling going on," Sinai laughed. So what was the job like? "They had magnetos and spark plugs in those days," said Sanai, "and I once had four of our five DC-4's in Shemya. We had two of them down with defective magnetos. A third came in on the flight from Tokyo, and then a fourth arrived from Vancouver with parts for the two stranded aircraft. It was CP Day in Shemya!". Although there was no such thing as an eight hour day and it was sometimes hectic, there was help. Northwest Airlines also used Shemya and their mechanics could be hired for help on heavy maintenance. Military personnel also offered to do "joe jobs" around the DC-4's, hoping to get close enough to a flight attendant to say hello. There were no single women on the island. The snow was 20 foot deep at times, due to drifts and we had to shovel ourselves out. "Once I had a DC-4 taxiing out. The snow was so high that when they plowed it, they didn't plow wide enough. The captain was worried that the outboard prop would start digging into the bank so he stopped. I went ahead and signalled him forward, as I was doing this, I noticed that the nose pin was still in the airplane. My heart practically stopped right there and then, I held my hand up to stop him and ran over to pull the pin out and then continued to signal the captain to restart taxiing until he was clear. Peck Sinai. |
Issue dated March 1990 |
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(Actual working mechanics were not available for the photo – eds) |
1958 - Feb 22nd - Official opening of the Britannia Hangar at Vancouver Airport - viewed as Canada's First Jet-Era Hangar, by Canadian Pacific Airlines.
From the "CP Air News" magazine issue dated February 1985. |
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Prince Rupert is located on an island 469 miles north of Vancouver. Its airport is located on an island - which means that every CP Air flight to and from Prince Rupert begins and ends with a ferry ride for the passengers. The city's Digby Island Airport was officially opened in 1961. Previous to that, CP Air served the city with amphibious Canso’s which landed in the harbour. Here are some of the 16 employees on the job in Prince Rupert. In the reservations office (on the left) we have Frank VanGisbergen, manager, Prince Rupert; who is flanked by agents, on the left we have Edda Tessari and Barb Zeller. In the City Ticket Office (on the right) are passenger agents Ken Sheppard and Sharon Walker. |
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Issue dated March 1985 |
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Over 15 years of service was celebrated by those in these photos- In the photo on the left we have Masamitsu Ishimori, accounting manager; Masaharu Yamada, passenger agent; Tokuji Yoshoka, company chauffeur; and Minoru Akiya, reservations sales agent; all of the Tokyo Office. The photo on the right photo is from Narita with Kazuo Suzuki, passenger agent; Kazuhiko Matsushima, airport service supervisor; and Shiro Yamada, cargo agent. |
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