Bell, Ian Henry ()

Ian Henry Bell was born about 1916 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, the son of Edward Crosby Bell (1888, Sunderland. England - 1917, WW1 , France) and Jane Daisy Holm Adam (1886, Glasgow, Scotland - 1977, Selkirk Street, Vancouver, BC., Canada). I believe he was married with a son James. On 8 April 1954 Ian was the pilot of, Trans-Canada Airlines Flight 9, a scheduled flight from Winnipeg to Vancouver, with a planned stop at Calgary. About a third of the way through its journey whilst approaching Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan from the east the airliner was involved in a catastrophic mid air collision with a Royal Canadian Air Force Harvard trainer. Thirty-seven people died in the crash. 31 passengers and four TCA crew members (including Ian) on board the North Star, the student pilot of the Harvard, and one woman on the ground. It was the worst aviation accident in Canada up to that time. A detailed account of the story is available at http://www.ephemeraltreasures.net/tca-crash-moose-jaw-part-1.html. Also commemorated on the gravestone is his maternal grandmother Isabella Fraser (1853, Resolis, Ross-shire - 1945, West 2nd Avenue, Vancouver, BC., Canada) who married Hugh Adam (1843, Ayr, Ayrshire - 1908, Auchentiber, Kilwinning, Ayrshire).