Harrowing plane ride still lingers 50 years later

By Mark Ribble

LEAMINGTON — A couple of weeks ago, Scott Holland’s account of the Leamington Flyers winning the Ontario Junior C championship in 1972 told of the playoffs and the tragedy that hit the local hockey community.

Greg Coulter was a member of that 1972 championship team and was also on one of the planes that got lost in a snowstorm on April 4, 1972, returning from the Flyers’ game in Bracebridge.

Greg’s hockey season had come to an early end with a poorly executed bodycheck in game two of the OHA quarter-final series in New Hamburg on March 19.

Attempting to slow down one of the New Hamburg Hahns’ players, he missed his check and fell awkwardly into the boards and broke his left arm.

“I spent a couple of days in a Kitchener hospital during March Break,” he says.

The Flyers dominated most of that series and went on to eliminate the Hahns with four wins and a tie in the eightpoint series.

Bracebridge was the next opponent and Coulter remembers the Bracebridge arena not being very welcoming.

“It was an intimidating old arena and the games featured a live band at one end,” he says. “Their signature song was Three Blind Mice when the referees took to the ice.”

The Bears took the first game by a 5-4 count, despite a late rally by the Flyers.

The local squad rebounded with a decisive 9-4 victory back here in game two.

Coulter remembers watching his teammates get ready for game three, which was set for Tuesday, April 4, 1972.

He chose not to join them on the team bus — Big Red — because he’d have to miss school.

Flyer volunteer and executive member, Gord MacDonald, contacted Greg and told him that he had arranged a charter flight with local pilot Jerry Rougoor, who agreed to fly them to Bracebridge out of Windsor Airport. Flyers exec Bob Fox would also be going on the flight.

“I saw this as a way to make it to the game without the long bus ride,” says Coulter.

So the foursome of Greg, Gord, Bob and Jerry took off as planned from Windsor.

Local “Mr. Hockey”, Joe Cross, had also chartered a plane and invited local fans Harold Derbyshire and Paul Wilkinson along for the ride. Their pilot, Tim Weatherall, was from Windsor.

The trip to Bracebridgewas uneventful and the eight air travelers watched theFlyers take a 2-1 series lead with a 7-4 win over the Bears.

Greg Coulter as a member of the Leamington Flyers.

Greg vividly remembers getting ready for the trip home. “The ground crew at the airport checked the weather and told us we should have a good trip home,” he said. “They told us “It’s a bit windy, but the skies are clear all the way to Wisconsin.”

In typical Joe Cross fashion, the big man from Leamington made one last comment as they boarded the two planes — something that remains with Greg Coulter to this day.

He jokingly said, “I’m sitting right behind the pilot. If we crash that’s the safest seat in the plane.”

Under crystal clear skies, Rougoor and his passengers took off first, as they had the slower plane of the two. The flight plan called for them to head toward Owen Sound, and then fly south toward London and west toward Windsor.

“Shortlyafter takeoff, things became complicated,” says Coulter. “The moisture off Lake Huron caused a wet snow to begin falling.”

Visibility quickly deteriorated to the point where they could no longer see the wing tips and Rougoor was relying solely on the plane’s compass to navigate his way south. Several times, the plane coughed and sputtered from the amount of snow hitting the engines.

“It was surprising to see how quickly you could become disoriented in a snowstorm,” says Coulter.

With his arm in a cast, the bumpy ride was less-than-comfortable.

Through the blinding snow they flew, not knowing if they were over land or lake.

Rougoor radioed a mayday and the control tower at Toronto responded, instructing them to head east to London.

“So we flew back into the storm,” says Coulter. “Visibility cleared and we realized we were over Kitchener.”

That’s when the Toronto tower told them to turn west and pick up instruction from the London tower.

Somewhere in that mess, Coulter remembers seeing other airplane lights in the distance and suddenly realized it was the other Windsor-bound plane — a Piper Cherokee carrying Cross, Derbyshire and Wilkinson — which zipped by as quickly as it appeared.

Fuel became an issue, and since they had flown past London a couple of times, it was decided that

London would be the only safe place for either of the planes to land.

With the snow blinding their way, the foursome kept in touch with the London tower, who advised they were in the vicinity and the London Knights DC-3 should be visible to them as it circled the airport waiting to land also.

“We saw a light ahead and assumed it was the light from the Knight’s plane, but the snow suddenly stopped and we were staring at the runway lights,” says Coulter.

Within seconds, the small plane went into a dive as Rougoor struggled to keep it in the air. As he righted the plane and got it back on track, it was decided that an emergency landing would be attempted and that’s what they did.

Once on the ground, the stranded foursome was grateful and wondered about the fate of the others and if they had made it back to Windsor.

Little did they know as they climbed into a cab headed for Leamington that Joe Cross and the others had crashed in a field not far away.

“We arrived home at daylight and the radio was already reporting that the other plane was missing,” said Coulter. “It was found on the Thursday in a field near Shedden. There were no survivors.”

As events unfolded, it was learned that the bus ride home for players and coaches was also a harrowing experience on the westbound 401, as the surprise snowstorm took everyone off guard.

On Thursday night, the Flyers hosted the Bears in game four of the series. It was a sombre mood as 1,400 fans came to the Leamington arena mere hours after the wreckage was found. The Bears won the game 4-1 as the Flyers struggled to keep their minds on the task at hand.

The support of the community, the executive and the leadership of coach Jim Butcher, trainer Jim Bradley and manager Ted Hannigan would be instrumental in the immediate future of the team.

“Those three really pulled it together for us,” says Coulter.

Former team owner and lifelong fan, Fred Epplett, offered his hunting camp in Huntsville for the team to stay in prior to the upcoming Sunday game five in Bracebridge. Coulter jumped back on the team bus for the trip back to Bracebridge on the Saturday.

The offer from Epplett allowed the players to avoid same day travel and deal with the tragedy of the week. Executive members travelled with the team and looked after all the meals and prewarmed the cabins. As they arrived at the camp, the snow was up to their waist and the bus got stuck in the driveway.

“It was buried really deep,” said Coulter. “The players all walked in, despite the depth of snow.”

Volunteers and coaches worked tirelessly to dig out the bus and get the players to the arena in time for Sunday’s game.

It was like the Leamington crew didn’t want to revisit Bracebridge again. They won the Sunday game 6-3 on the back of John Moore’s 52-save performance and never looked back. They handily won the series and prepared to face off against the Cobourg Cougars in the finals.

Against Coburg, the outcome of the series was never really in doubt, as the Flyers rolled to the championship in five games.

Greg Coulter returned to the Flyers the following season, where they bowed out of the semi-finals to the Caledonia Corvairs, led by future NHL star goaltender Don Edwards.

But his memories of that fateful night in April 1972 will always be in the back of his mind and now — some 50 years later — just talking about it brought those memories surging back.

“I didn’t realize how much it affected me then, but talking about it now, I can feel everything coming back like it was yesterday,” he says.