Wheeler Airlines Flight 1658
Douglas DC-4/C-54A-15-DC (F) · Structural failure due to progressive engine fire
From Montreal / Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport (YUL) to Hall Beach Airport, Nunavut, Canada
Event
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- Event fatalities
- 5 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- Unknown
- Survivors
- 0
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- Unknown
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Airline
Douglas DC-4/C-54A-15-DC (F)
- Aircraft type
- Douglas DC-4
- Category
- Airplane · from aircraft type
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- CF-ILI
- Operator
- Wheeler Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- 5
- Route
- From Montreal / Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport (YUL)To Hall Beach Airport, Nunavut, Canada
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Aircraft › Aircraft structures
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Not plotted · Not plotted: the Wikipedia article gives no coordinates, and its site names no town or airport that matches exactly.
From the Wikipedia article
Wheeler Airlines Flight 1658 (flight number: WH1658) was a domestic cargo flight of the Canadian airline Wheeler Airlines from Montreal-Dorval Airport to Hall Beach Airport on 4 November 1959, on which a Douglas DC-4/C-54A-15-DC (F) crashed after a progressive engine fire, killing all five crew members.
Accident sequence
The flight was conducted at night. The aircraft took off at 22:44 from runway 10 in Montreal on a cargo flight to Hall Lake. After takeoff, the pilots climbed the aircraft to 6000 feet. The course was then changed, the aircraft climbed to 9000 feet and reached this altitude at 22:59. About three and a half minutes later, the crew reported that they were making an emergency descent because of a fire in engine No. 2 (left inboard). The last radio contact was at 23:07, when the crew reported that the left wing had broken off and the aircraft was now spinning towards the ground. The DC-4 broke up in the air and crashed to the ground. The debris field covered an area of 1.25 × 0.75 miles.
Investigation and cause
Cause
The accident investigation found that during the climb a fire of unknown origin had broken out in the area of the engine nacelle of engine No. 2. The intensity of the fire had increased rapidly until it reached a stage at which the engine fire extinguishing system was insufficient to put it out. The main factors in the accident were considered to be 1) the deteriorated condition of the exhaust manifold; 2) the probably deteriorated condition of the hoses; 3) the high engine load during the climb; and 4) a possible failure of the fire detection and warning system, which was supposed to inform the pilots of the presence of a fire before the fire could penetrate the bulkhead and spread to the fuel supply system and the oil tank at the rear of engine No. 2. During the rapid descent, the wing structure weakened by the effects of the fire had been further stressed as a result of the manoeuvres and/or gusts, causing the left wing spar to break. At this point the aircraft could no longer be recovered and a crash became inevitable. It was not possible to determine what the consequences of a more slowly initiated descent would have been.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the German Wikipedia article “Wheeler-Airlines-Flug 1658” (revision 203695060, retrieved 2026-09-19) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out; the translation may contain errors, and long articles were cut to their first 700 words. Read the article
Sources
German Wikipedia article: Wheeler-Airlines-Flug 1658
- Article
- Wheeler-Airlines-Flug 1658
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 203695060 · 2020-09-15 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q99534333
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
Where each value comes from
- Record
- de Wikipedia article "Wheeler-Airlines-Flug 1658" (page 11450985, revision 203695060), translated into English with AI assistance
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- none
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- flight number in the article title
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia article lead
Source notes (1)
- Wikipedia · Facts from the German Wikipedia article's infobox, translated into English with AI assistance, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.