The Dryden Museum is planning an exhibit on the March, 1989 plane crash involving an Air Ontario jet.

The crash killed 21 of the 65 passengers and three of four crew members including both pilots.

Michelle Walter is the museum’s curator and says they are looking for first hand accounts of the fatal crash.

“Those stories are slowly starting to disappear and if we don’t collect them now, we are going to lose them,” Walter told Dryden city council at a recent meeting.

“It is a very sensitive topic so we don’t want to pressure anyone into sharing those stories too early, but we also don’t want to lose key information.”

Walter points out that they do have official documents about the accident, but not much in the way of personal accounts.

“We have all those facts.  We have everything that was written out in the Commission of Inquiry.  But what we don’t have is people’s personal accounts and that’s what really makes history is people’s own connections.”

Walter says eventually they would like to have a more accessible memorial of the fatal crash.

She adds this is all part of a more extensive project on the fatal crash.

(File photo)