August 9 is “Peacekeeping Day” in Canada. The day was selected to commemorate the contributions and sacrifices of Canadian peacekeepers because, on that day in 1974, a Canadian Buffalo aircraft serving on United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) II was shot down, with the loss of all nine lives.

It was a typically hot sunny day with light winds over the eastern Mediterranean on the early afternoon of August 9, 1974. United Nations Flight 51 chugged its way along the centre line of airway R-14, maintaining an altitude of 11,000 feet at a sedate speed of 205 knots. It was enroute from Ismailia, Egypt, to Damascus, Syria, via Beirut, Lebanon.

The cargo aircraft was an unarmed Canadian Armed Forces’ de Havilland Canada (DHC) Buffalo, tail number C-115461, painted in the unmistakable, distinctive United Nations livery of blue and white. Read the rest of the article . . .