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Description
As a pilot instructor at Summerside, Prince Edward Island, Mr. Lindsey remembers several fatalities and near misses by those in training. He relates one incident involving Charlottetown native Charlie Trainor who would go on to be one of Canada's most outstanding aces of the Second World War.
Transcription
It was during a snowstorm and we had, in those days we had no radios, we had what was called a Gosport System where you spoke through a tube into the earphones of the student in the front seat. And the recall for bad weather or for any other reason was a flare which was sent up, it went up to about 1200 feet and burst into a, well it was a pyrotechnic...burst into a big orange ball and that meant if you saw that, and they fired several off over the course of ten or fifteen minutes, if you saw that you were to immediately return to base. And I saw the recall signal so my student and I hightailed it back and we landed safely, but several other aircraft got cut out and didn't see the recall until the weather hit them. They got back over what he thought, what the instructor thought was over base, but couldn't see the ground so they, they did...he asked the pilot, the student to bail out but the student wouldn't. So he remained with the aircraft and circled and slowly let down because he thought he was over water and he thought he would hit the water. But suddenly he hit a snowbank. Neither student nor instructor were injured so the instructor said to the student "Remain with the aircraft, I'll go get some help." And he walked about a hundred yards into the hanger. He was on the airfield. He didn't know it. The instructor's name was Charlie Trainor from Eastern Canada, and to my, to the best of my knowledge he's still alive today.