You Guy wrote:

I worked at CHAY FM when the tower went down.  The station signed on in May of 77 and through the summer it was going off the air frequently.  Some said it was "teething issues with the new transmitter and antenna. Chay didn't have a full-time engineer.  Bob Bowland, the Operations Manager, could handle most tech problems but the station had CHIN radio engineers, Paul Hunter and Trevor Joice on call.
On Sept 7th,  Bob was at the TX site with Paul or Trevor about an hour before the crash.  On the way back to the station it went off the air again.  They turned around and headed back to CKVR and met a lot of police cars and fire trucks heading to the TV station.
The plane's nose hit the 500 ft level of the tower.  The prop engines kept on going ending up in a corn field south of the TX site.  The senior management of Falconbridge Mines in Sudbury were on that aircraft.  Afterward, I know many companies adopted a policy of not allowing senior management on the same flight.    One of the CKVR employees had the roof sheared off his Jimmy by a guy wire.  The TV anchor Terry Thomas told me they heard the noise and told everyone to get under a desk. One of the guy wires took down a small tower by the building and it fell across the roof damaging the news set.  Amazingly the transmitter building and the CHAY transmitter had very little damage.
About 72 hours later CHAY was back on the air thanks to Paul and Trevor securing a 100 watt transmitter and placing the antenna on a short Bell tower adjacent to the CKVR site.

 

Crazy event.  I also read that the CKVR transmitter itself exploded. Thanks for sharing.  Bob Bowland ran CKLP in Parry Sound after in the 90s if im not mistaken and now runs an online Parry Sound Eastern Shores radio which is identical to what CKLP was in the 90s.  The Bell Tower across the street on Beacon Rd is still there but nothing on it oddly and also, another self standing short tower on the CKVR property still stands maybe as backup.  Did you work on the current tower when it went up in 78?

Last edited by markow202 (February 24, 2023 4:04 pm)