My Father's Plane Crash

Doug Heath and Twin Brother Gilbert (Gib) Heath
This picture was taken during World War Two when my father was a sergeant in the RCAF.

During the Second World War, my father enlisted with the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) and was trained as a pilot. On one of his early solo flights, his plane crashed just after takeoff. My father has no recollection of the crash, but vividly remembers being conscious and standing on the wing of the burning plane. He had no idea how he got out of the plane. During the accident, he received a gash to his head and it is possible that he blacked out, but he wonders to this day, how he was able to get out of the cockpit without being fully aware of what he was doing, as this requires considerable coordination and physical effort. He has always wondered if a “guardian angel” had physically intervened and saved him from perishing in the fire that destroyed the plane.

My father told me that he was flying a Cessna Crane when he had the accident. This happened on February 17, 1944 in Brandon, Manitoba.

Note: I recently learned an interesting thing from my cousin Mark, who was Gib's oldest son. Mark told me that his father had quite an interest in UFOs himself, and had even corresponded with Dr. Allen Hynek, a scientist who worked for Project Bluebook and founder of CUFOS. Mark also had an interest in UFOs when he was younger and wrote a paper at school titled "Flying Saucers are Real" (I am sure this was long before Stanton Friedman adopted his trademark phrase).  Mark's brother, Warren, confirmed that his father was interested in UFOs and Warren told me his father was at one time a UFO field investigator for NICAP! I was very surprised to learn this as I had never talked to my Uncle Gib about UFOs before he died. NICAP was headed by Major Donald Keyhoe. Keyhoe was the UFO investigator who broke the story of the Kinross Air Force Base missing F-89 as a UFO encounter in his book, "The Flying Saucer Conspiracy".