Passengers recall memories from Canada’s first recorded plane hijacking

A new podcast is looking at the hijacking of Flight 303 in 1968.

More than 56 years ago, Saint John, N.B., was the site of Canadian aviation history: the first plane hijacking (skyjacking).

A podcast started by Saint John historians Greg Marquis and Mark Allen Greene called Saint John: Nothing Happened Here wants people to be aware of the historic incident.

“Skyjacking was becoming a big thing and then it happens in our mid-sized Canadian city, Saint John, New Brunswick,” says podcast co-host Greg Marquis, who is also a history professor at the University of New Brunswick. “You wouldn’t expect this story to come out of Saint John and I think that was the most intriguing part for me.”

On Sept.11, 1968, an Air Canada Vickers Viscount passenger plane took off from Moncton and made a stop in Saint John before continuing to its final destination in Toronto. While stopping in Saint John, a number of passengers hopped on Air Canada Flight 303, including Susan Pridham.

At the time she was 19 years old and was moving to Toronto. While waiting to board the plane, she noticed a man pacing back and forth, and her time working in the police department led her to believe something was off.

The plane then boarded and took off, but it wasn’t long before the skyjacking commenced.

“He came up the aisle with a gun to the back of the stewardess neck,” Pridham recalls. “I looked at Berta Peacock as she was then and said just jokingly, ‘We’re going to Cuba.’”

Little did she know that was exactly the demand the skyjacker made.

His name was Charles L. Beasley. His name appeared in secret FBI files that were monitoring political activities by Black activists. Earlier in 1968 he was involved in an armed bank robbery in Texas, which caused him to flee to Canada.

On the day of the skyjacking, Beasley used a loaded revolver and demanded to be flown to Cuba. He told crew he was a Black Power activist who was on the run from the Central Intelligence Agency.

“The pilot and the copilot managed to convince him that the Viscount couldn’t go to Cuba, let’s go to Montreal to get fuel,” says Marquis. “I think on the way there, they convinced him maybe rather than Cuba, you want to try to stay in Canada to get political asylum. There’s really no such thing but I don’t think the hijacker knew that, and so once he got on the ground he was convinced to surrender, he let the passengers and stewardesses go, and then eventually surrendered peacefully to RCMP.”

Pridham credits the crew on the plane that day for keeping passengers calm, saying their demeanour under the circumstances made passengers feel safe.

Some passengers were so calm they didn’t even realize the skyjacking had occurred until they had landed in Montreal.

Mike Wennberg was one of those passengers. He was on his way to the University of Toronto and noticed a passenger in a trench coat who seemed nervous pacing prior to boarding but didn’t think much of it

“I certainly noticed the cockpit door opening and closing and slamming a few times,” Wennberg recalls. “But I was blissfully ignorant of anything going on.”

Charles “Bud” Cavanaugh was working as a ticket agent at the Saint John Airport the day of the skyjacking. He admits it’s hard to remember back to the day, but upon hearing the podcast, the memories started flying back.

“I do recall now some kind of a foreign-make car come out, and the licence plate wasn’t like a New Brunswick plate,” Cavanaugh says. “This man was a very tall Black man, and he walked in, I don’t think he had a bag and checked in probably an hour before. Then he left the counter, and I did see him again after that.”

Cavanaugh says he didn’t appear any different then any other passenger, noting security wasn’t like it is today.

“It was just a simple check-in,” Cavanaugh says. “He had a ticket and pulled a coupon out; I gave him a boarding pass and he was on his way.”

It wasn’t until the flight was in the air he heard of the incident on board through the airport’s radio channels. He was relieved upon hearing the flight had safely made it to Montreal.

The two-part podcast can be found anywhere you get your podcasts.

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