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April 30, 1999
(Industry, Trade and Technology)


The following statement was issued today by Sandra kelly, Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology. It was also read in the House of Assembly:

I wish today to pay tribute to Mr. Austin Lloyd Garrett of Gander, who passed away on Saturday, April 24.

Mr. Garrett will be remembered by many for his extraordinary flying career, and for the courage he demonstrated many times under trying circumstances.

Mr. Garrett was born in 1922 in Port Blandford where he grew up and was educated. At the age of 17 he left Newfoundland for Scotland as a member of the Forestry Unit. That same year he joined the Royal Air Force. Later he became a flight instructor, training many Royal Air Force and Commonwealth pilots for the war effort. Over the course of the war years, he was promoted from Sergeant to Flight Sergeant to Warrant Officer.

Following World War II, Mr. Garrett worked with Canadian National Railway in Toronto, transferring from there to Gander in 1952 as CNR's express agent. Three years later he joined Eastern Provincial Airways as a dispatcher and later as a pilot for the airline.

There were many times when Mr. Garrett's aviation skills and courage were tested during his flying career. The most memorable happened September 5, 1967 when a Czechoslovakian aircraft crashed about 2:40 a.m. shortly after takeoff from Gander International Airport. The crash occurred in a boggy area about a mile from the end of the runway and about 2,000 feet from the nearest road, making it impossible to get vehicles across the bog to rescue the injured. Mr. Garrett readily agreed to a request to fly a helicopter to the crash site to rescue the injured.

In less than two hours that morning, Mr. Garrett make 18 round trips from the crash site to the airport terminal, succeeding in rescuing all of the 39 people injured. What is truly remarkable is that he did it during hours of darkness when a helicopter is not normally operated. Furthermore, he had to fly over and through smoke from the crash. His only landing aids were the lights of the Sikorsky helicopter, flashlights held by rescue workers on the ground, and fire from the crash. Having rescued the injured, he made many other trips to the crash site, bringing equipment and supplies in, and on the return trip taking bodies back out.

For his heroic effects and his courage under dangerous circumstances, for the urgency he gave to rescuing injured people so that their needs could be attended to as quickly as possible, Mr. Garrett was invested as a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1968.

I ask the House to join with me in expressing sincere condolences to Mr. Garrett's family B his wife Kay and their four children.

1999 04 30 9:15 a.m.


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