Article content

On May 15, 1956 — 60 years ago Sunday — a CF-100 fighter jet, travelling at 1,100 kilometres an hour, descended crazily from an ungodly height to crash into Villa St-Louis in Orléans along the Ottawa River.

It was a residence for nuns, 11 of whom were among the 15 fatalities.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Egan: 60 years ago: the fiery 'cross of God' that killed 11 nuns in Orléans Back to video

The blast was colossal, heard as far away as Manotick, and the 15-ton craft left a crater where once a brick building stood. Just as it broke windows two kilometres away, it shattered the city’s sense of order.

How could a new aircraft on a routine mission — not far from its home base of Uplands — manage to strike the only building in a relatively rural area — and have its occupants be members of a religious order dedicated to serving the sick and needy?

Flipping through the archival news coverage, it is evident that the good citizenry was seized with this wretched existential question: if a God, how does this happen?

“God has sent us this cross from the sky,” a nun was quoted in the Citizen. “It fell on our chapel. May His Will be done.” It does scan a little oddly in a secular era, but we hardly have a better answer today, do we?