November 13, 1979. It was a chilly, -20C morning in Churchill, Manitoba. A Curtis C-46 Commando belonging to Lambair had just taken off and reported increased oil temperature, and decreased oil pressure in the left engine. The crew of three, turned the aircraft around to go back, but it was too late.
While scouting my trip to Churchill, creating a list of the things that I wanted to see while I was there, I had made note of this wreck apparently known as “Miss Piggy”. Later, I discovered that this may have been for no better reason than it had once hauled pigs.
While I was in Churchill and slowly working through my list, somehow, this wreck was forgotten until I stumbled upon it by chance while looking for polar bears. I was happy, because it would have been a missed opportunity for sure.
This aircraft was originally delivered to the US Army Airforce in July, 1945, as World War II was winding down. In 1951, it was sold to Riddle Airlines. From then, it would serve a number of different clients until April, 1978 when it was purchased by Lambair out of Thomspon, Manitoba.
On this fateful morning in 1979, Miss Piggy was loaded with a skidoo and a large shipment of pop (soda) when it crashed into the rocks not far from the Hudson Bay shoreline. I have seen several mentions of the aircraft being quite overweight upon takeoff and that this was the cause of the engine failure.
The interesting painting on the left side of the aircraft is the result of the Sea Walls event held in Churchill in 2017. During this event, a number of public surfaces were turned into the canvases on which painters were invited create works of art for display.
