Curtiss C-46 Commando "Miss Piggy" Aircraft Wreck

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Curtiss C-46 Commando "Miss Piggy" Aircraft Wreck is a Plane and Historic and Protected Site at Churchill MB, Canada

The Curtiss C-46 Commando known as Miss Piggy is one of Churchill’s best-loved landmarks. The wrecked aircraft lies beside the road a short way from town, on the shore of Hudson Bay in northern Manitoba. The C-46 was a big twin-engined transport, widely used from the Second World War onward, and this one earned its nickname for the heavy, bulky cargo it hauled around the north. On 13 November 1979 it ran into engine trouble shortly after taking off from Churchill and was forced into a crash landing. It came down hard and was wrecked. Remarkably, everyone on board survived. Rather than clear it away, people left the wreck where it lay, and over the years it has become a memorial to Churchill’s bush-flying past, its fuselage now covered in graffiti and endlessly photographed. Interpretive signs tell the story of the crash and of the aviators who kept the isolated communities of the north supplied. Churchill sits at around 59°N beneath the auroral oval, so on clear winter nights the northern lights often appear overhead, and the silhouette of the old plane makes a striking foreground.