CBC Tower (Mont-Carmel)

CBC Tower (Mont-Carmel) (1st)
General information
Status	Destroyed
Type	TV Mast
Location	Notre-Dame-du-Mont-Carmel, Quebec, Canada
Coordinates	46°29′33.26″N 72°39′5.63″W
Completed	1972
Destroyed	2001
Height	331.4 m (1,087.27 ft)

The CBC Tower, also known as the WesTower Transmission Tower, was a 331.4-metre-high (1,087 ft) guyed mast (now 326.7-metre-high (1,072 ft) after its reconstruction) for FM- and TV-transmission located atop Mont-Carmel near Shawinigan, Quebec, Canada. The tower was built in 1972 and it served for several decades as Quebec's primary CBC transmission point and also served several radio and television stations for the Trois-Rivières market.

2001 Incident

On April 22, 2001 a lone pilot, Gilbert Paquette, flew his Cessna 150 into the tower and was killed. The fuselage of the plane remained wedged in the upper part of the tower, with the pilot's body inside. The crash also knocked the tower several metres off balance. It was decided that due to the structural damage and the need to recover the pilot's body the mast would have to be demolished. Several days later a controlled implosion brought the tower down, not damaging the several buildings nearby. At the time, it was the tallest structure to have ever been demolished with explosives.

In July 2003, a new mast broadcasting with over double the effective radiated power of the original mast (from 4,386 watts to 9,300 watts) was built exactly at the same place, on the same base. Its height is the same, 307-metre-high (1,007 ft) for the tower structure, but the antenna on the top who was 24.4-metre-high (80 ft) is 19.7-metre-high (65 ft) now.

See also

• List of masts

External links

• Implosion World: "Freak Accident Leads to Record-Setting Blast"