Tragedy at Gander
On the morning of December 12, 1985, at 0645 local time (0515 EST), Arrow Airlines flight 1285, a DC-8-63 charter carrying 248 passengers and a crew of eight, crashed just after takeoff form Gander International Airport, Gander, Newfoundland, Canada. All on board perished as a result of the impact or the post-crash fire, which, fed by the contents of the stricken aircraft’s full fuel tanks, took local fire fighters nearly four hours to bring under control and approximately thirty hours to completely extinguish. The firefighters were hampered in their efforts because of the rugged terrain, which initially prevented more than one fire truck at a time from being used.
The passengers on the ill-fated charter were U.S. Soldiers. All but twelve were members of the 3d Battalion, 502d Infantry, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault); eleven were from other Forces Command units; and one was a CID agent form the Criminal Investigations Command. They were returning to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, home station of the 101st Airborne Division, after completing a six-month tour of duty in the Sinai with the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO). This international peacekeeping organization, made up of contingents from ten nations, had been established under terms of a protocol between Egypt and Israel signed on August 3, 1981. The MFO has had the mission of implementing security provisions contained in the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty.
Perhaps no other event in its peacetime history has so wrenched the soul and torn at the hear of the US Army as the Gander tragedy, which
ranked as the worst military air disaster in the nation’s history. But in spite of its grief, the Army moved quickly in responding to the tragedy.
http://www.qmfound.com/gander.htmlINTRODUCTION OF LEGISLATION TO ESTABLISH A COMMISSION TO INVESTIGATE THE GANDER PLANE CRASH -- (Extension of Remarks - April 30, 1992)
---
HON. ROBIN TALLON
in the House of Representatives
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 29, 1992
* Mr. TALLON. Mr. Speaker, I along with 18 House colleagues will introduce legislation to establish a commission to reopen the investigation into the Gander plane crash.
* The commission will look into the many unanswered questions which surround the cause of the crash and the botched investigation which followed.
* Seven years ago a military charter bringing 248 American soldiers home from a peace-keeping mission in the Middle East crashed over Gander, NF. It remains this country's worst military peace-time disaster, killing more soldiers than the military conflicts of Desert Storm, the Panama invasion and Grenada combined.
* Questions still persist as to the cause of this tragedy. Rather than initiating its own investigation, the U.S. Government chooses to accept a disputed report from the deeply divided Canadian Commission. Almost half of the Canadian Board claimed that an explosion caused the plane to crash.
* Even though it is standard procedure to investigate terrorism as a cause in any air disaster, no U.S. agency, including the Vice President's Task Force on Combating Terrorism and its chairman at the time, George Bush, ever investigated for the possibility of terrorism or foul play. This despite the fact that the terrorist group, Islamic Jihad, tried four times to take credit for the crash.
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1992_cr/h920430-gander.htm airforce.dnd.ca Honorable Portor Goss February, 14 , 1998
Chairman
House Intelligence Oversight Committee
US House of Representatives
Washington, D.C.
Subject: My knowledge of CIA involvement in the crash of the Gander Arrow Air DC-8 and PAN AM 103
Dear Chairman Goss,My specialized knowledge of ordinance, explosives and pyrotechnics may provide the missing insights needed to solve several major terrorist crimes. For 15 years my company ACCURACY SYSTEMS ORDINANCE CORPORATION, provided specialized explosive devices to law enforcement, the military, Special Forces and the Central Intelligence Agency.
As you read this letter Accuracy Systems' former munitions manufacturing facilities in New River, Arizona are under occupation of the BATF who moved onto the property Sept. 20, 1997 and have been occupying the facilities there at considerable expense to the tax payers ever since. Their intent from the start has been to "blow up" the explosives magazines and burn our former research and development workshop and its contents --- and in the process --- destroy certain evidence that can link U S aircraft bombings to the CIA, a former client of Accuracy Systems.
Specifically, I wish to bring your attention to a device that Sgt. Arleigh McCree, the renowned head of the Los Angeles Police Bomb Squad Unit, felt certain was the device responsible for blowing up the US Army chartered ARROW AIR DC-8 passenger transport that crashed in Gander, Newfoundland December 12, 1985. All of the 248 servicemen and the 8 person flight crew died when the bomb exploded immediately after take-off. The plane then traveled a short distance in the air before it crashed and burned. Our firm designed and manufactured the responsible device exclusively for, and sold it only to, the Central Intelligence Agency.
This crash, which was the worst military air disaster in United States history, involved more strange occurrences than any other crash on record. While the wreckage still burned on the ground, White House Spokesperson Larry Speaks announced that the plane had crashed "probably as a result of icing on the wings." This was the official cause that the US government forced on the Canadians, who have subsequently repudiated it.
http://www.pinetreeline.org/other/other18/other18an.htmlPost - Crash InvestigationThe Arrow Air DC-8 departed from the terminal at 6:40 a.m. Gander local time, crashing six minutes later less than a half-mile from the end of runway 22. (1:5) Army Major Gen. John Crosby arrived in Gander at 3:00 p.m. local time, along with Army personnel to assist the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in their investigative efforts. However, the Army's only role was to assist, and not investigate, at the scene of the accident; this would be done solely by the RCMP. Representatives from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the FBI were also dispatched to the site within hours of the crash.
The disturbing part about the investigation lies in the cooperative efforts between the Canadian and U.S. governments. Many of the officials sent to the crash site were told that they had no jurisdiction there, as the crash did not take place on U.S. territory. In most accidents that involve U.S. citizens, officials probe further to uncover details. In this case, however, many of the officials accepted whatever theories were laid before them by the Canadian officials. The FBI officials were put up in a hotel room for several days, at which time they were informed about the RCMP's findings and told to go home. Information in hand, they departed, leaving a possible crime scene with only the information they were provided -- unprecedented for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. (6:34)
Two separate eyewitnesses remember General Crosby ordering the "immediate bulldozing of the crash site." Although General Crosby denies mentioning the bulldozing operation in December, records show that less than 10 days following the accident, Crosby was in touch with officials in Gander and Ottawa regarding the site cleanup, which was to be performed with "a representative of the Army present at all times." (2:83-85) The immediate bulldozing of a crash site removes all traces of wrongdoing, and seems especially intriguing in light of the Pan Am 103 investigation which took place after that flight was brought down by an explosion over Lockerbie, Scotland. Investigators in the Pan Am case reconstructed the aircraft piece by piece until the source of the explosion was found: a detonator small enough to fit in the lock of a suitcase was found among the 747's wreckage. (2:431) No meticulous investigation such as this was made in the Gander accident. The bodies of the deceased were the only hard evidence examined for an in-flight explosion, and even they were hurriedly examined.
http://www.sandford.org/gandercrash/investigations/gander_paper/html/_4.shtml The following link is an excellent source of info about the Crash at Gander:
http://www.sandford.org/gandercrash/investigations/gander_paper/html/_3.shtmlTo the 248 American troops who died that day, may you always be remembered. RIP
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