25th Anniversary Gander Crash

[Richard]

Some of y'all may remember this one - 12 Dec 85 - I do.

Richard

Fort Campbell To Mark 25th Anniversary Of Deadly Crash
Nashville NPR, 9 Dec 2010

In 1985 a plane crash in Newfoundland killed more than 200 soldiers from Fort Campbell and the 101st Airborne Division. This weekend the post will hold a rememberance ceremony on the 25th anniversary of one of the deadliest air accidents in military history.

The 248 soldiers were coming home from a peacekeeping mission in the Middle East when their plane crashed on takeoff; there were no survivors.

Chaplain Roger Heath helped counsel the victims’ families and friends for months afterward. He says most every unit on post was affected.

“Soldiers who were here in those days still remember. You still think about them when you go and look at the memorial plaques and see the names, you still see some of their faces. So in 25 years a lot of soldiers have already left the military, retired, or ended their tour of service, but some of us are still around and still remember some of the guys that went.”

Fort Campbell has held a remembrance ceremony and wreath-laying each year since the crash. Heath says losing so many soldiers was particularly stunning because the tragedy happened in peacetime, but still, “a loss is a loss.”

http://wpln.org/?p=22367

Families Mark 25 Years Since Arrow Air Crash
Metro Toronto, 9 Dec 2010

Amy Gallo learned that her husband Rick had been killed in the deadliest plane crash on Canadian soil when their three-year-old son walked into the kitchen of their Kentucky home.

"He said: 'Daddy's dead,'" she recalled as she prepared to mark the 25th anniversary since Arrow Air Flight 1285 struck a lonesome hillside in Newfoundland.

The little boy had been watching cartoons in the living room when a news alert and footage from Gander, N.L., cut in.

"I went and looked at the TV and sure enough they were saying the plane was down and there were no survivors."

The map on television matched the one she had just shown her son of the route his father, Sgt. Richard Nichols, was taking home to Fort Campbell, Ky., after a six-month peacekeeping mission on the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt.

He was among 248 U.S. troops who died Dec. 12, 1985, along with eight crew. It was his fifth wedding anniversary. He was 35 years old.

Most of the soldiers on board were members of the 101st Airborne Division Screaming Eagles. The fabled 101st, a legendary paratrooper unit, wears the American eagle emblem as a reflection of its military mission to crush its foes "by falling upon them like a thunderbolt from the skies."

Horrific photos of the fiery wreckage were soon beamed around the world as hundreds of reporters arrived in Gander.

Gallo had been at the Fort Campbell gym earlier that morning with hundreds of other wives and loved ones waiting to greet the troops. They were told to go home for two hours, that the flight had been delayed.

"They knew the plane had crashed when they sent us back home — and I'm still angry to this day," Gallo said.

A military reeling from the news had tried to buy time to grapple with how to help the families, she said.

"There were so many of us."

A controversial report from a rancorously divided Canadian Aviation Safety Board would later blame ice on the aircraft's wings. But four of the board's nine members issued a dissenting report raising the prospect of an on-board explosion.

Two eyewitnesses quoted in local newspaper accounts said they saw the glow of fire in the sky before the plane crashed.

Moreover, a review by former Supreme Court of Canada Justice Willard Estey found that the icing theory was unproven. But in the absence of a U.S. or Canadian public followup, theories of a possible terrorist attack have persisted along with claims of a coverup.

The troops had stopped in Germany and Gander for refuelling before the chartered Arrow Air DC-8 was to take them on the last stretch home in time for Christmas. The plane took off at 6:45 a.m. local time but was in the air for only about a minute before it lost altitude and hit the treed hillside sloping toward Gander Lake.

Earlier that morning, Nichols and other troops had formed long lines at the telephones at Gander International Airport.

"I love you" was the last thing he told her in a three-minute conversation, said Gallo, who later remarried and still volunteers with newly widowed military wives.

Robyn Stack, 71, retraced her son Shayne's last steps at the airport during a visit to Gander in October.

She met Cynthia Goodyear, who was working in the duty free shop when the troops came through that morning singing along to Christmas carols that were playing.

Many of them bought T-shirts that said: I Survived Gander, Newfoundland.

Stack spent much of her five days in Gander at The Silent Witness memorial on the exact site where the plane carrying her 24-year-old son went down. A statue of a soldier holds the hand of a child on either side. Up the hill where twisted hulks of metal smouldered among scattered bodies and debris, crosses hand-fashioned from small rocks lay on the ground.

Stack made one for Shayne. She said she couldn't face visiting the site before she shared stories of her loss with local author Gary Collins. His book "Where Eagles Lie Fallen: The Crash of Arrow Air Flight 1285, Gander, Newfoundland" is a tribute to those who died and their families.

"It was just time for me to be there," she said. "It happened at the right time.

"I felt that place was like sacred ground."

Gallo plans to make her own pilgrimage to the place where her beloved husband, the father of her two oldest children, fell from the sky.

"I do need to go," she said. "I've got to put a little bit of closure there sooner or later because, even after 25 years, it's not closed."

http://www.metronews.ca/toronto/cana...rrow-air-crash

[CSB]

I'll be there on Sunday at Fort Campbell.

I was the 2nd Brigade JAG, did a lot of the after action following the deaths of the Commander, many staff, and soldiers (including CID agent transporting evidence).

MAJ Russ Church (Staff Judge Advocate for that rotation) will be there, he has been at every memorial service for the past 24 years.

Any other SOCNETTER's intend to be there?

One poem captures the loss of those soldiers, and our friends (unto today) who die young.
Unlike us, with hair turning gray and bodies lapsing into the softness of age and retirement, they will forever be young, strong, handsome, with dark hair and hard bodies, always fast and agile:

TO AN ATHLETE DYING YOUNG

The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields were glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's.

And a song that I cannot hear without feeling it was written for the men who died at Gander that December 25 years ago, especially the highlighted words:

Just yesterday morning they let me know you were gone
........... the plans they made put an end to you
I walked out this morning and I wrote down this song
I just can't remember who to send it to

I've seen fire and I've seen rain
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I'd see you again

Won't you look down on me, Jesus
You've got to help me make a stand
You've just got to see me through another day
My body's aching and my time is at hand
And I won't make it any other way

I’ve been walking my mind to an easy time
My back turned towards the sun
Lord knows the cold wind blows it’ll turn your head around
Well, there’s hours of time on the telephone line
To talk about things to come
Sweet dreams and flying machines
in pieces on the ground.

Oh, I've seen fire and I've seen rain
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I'd see you, one more time again.
Thought I'd see you one more time again
There's just a few things coming my way this time around,
Thought I'd see you, thought I'd see you fire and rain, now
Thought I'd see you just one more time again.

To my fellow soldiers on Arrow Air Flight 1285:

I thought I'd see you one more time.

[JJ_BPK]

RIP Warriors, Vaya con Dios..

[Green Light]

I remember it well. It was a horrific day for the entire Army family. Such a senseless way for so many heroes to meet their end. I know that the grief at Fort Campbell was incredible and everyone there went to the aid of loved ones. Rest easy warriors. You are not forgotten.

[sinjefe]

I was in the 101st (4/187th) and was sitting in a marshalling area getting ready to deploy to the Sinai on that day. We were replacing them, but were pulled off because of the crash. I spent the next six months on funeral detail. Very sobering.

[1stindoor]

I remember it as well. I was preparing to go to the Dallas MEPS station.

[uplink5]

December 1985 was a very tough time for me and my wife since our son passed away on 1 Dec 85. When the Gander crash happened, my wife and I watched the services and of course Ronald Reagan's role in the grieving process was a great source of comfort since my wife and I were also still grieving. I guess we kind of felt those families pain as well as our own.

Subsequently, there was much to do about many of the details surrounding this event and Special Forces’ role in it.

Many unanswered questions and players:

http://www.sandford.org/gandercrash/...s/_index.shtml

jd

[chance]

I work with the daughter of one of the soldiers from that flight.

[PRB]

I remember hearing about this at Bragg when 5th Gp was still there.
The thought of families waiting in the gym to welcome home their soldiers just made me sick. It still does.
The pain of that collective hurt must have been earth shaking.
However, and I know you soldiers will understand...being buried with your comrades, all of a unit, is comforting. I imagine an orderly line of troops checking into a new unit.....

[Gypsy]

Such a tragedy. Rest in Peace to all, my thoughts are with all who lost family and friends.

[The Reaper]

RIP, brothers.

TR

[monsterhunter]

I also remember this well. I was assigned to Dover AFB at the time as part of the base honor guard. We received the soldiers after the ceremony and carried them into the port morturary from the cars. I remember folding the flags that were draped over the transfer cases for the immediate family.

Rest in peace soldiers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...5%E2%80%931999)


What year was it when several SF brothers were killed in Arizona when blasting caps went off in a helicopter, causing aircraft to crash?

Report was: Caps were not shunted, or placed in an ammo can. Caps in question were placed in C4 and carried in ruck sacks.

[WholeManin2010]

Originally Posted by wet dog

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...5%E2%80%931999)

Sobering, to say the least. Painful to read.

[uplink5]

Originally Posted by wet dog

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...5%E2%80%931999)


What year was it when several SF brothers were killed in Arizona when blasting caps went off in a helicopter, causing aircraft to crash?

Report was: Caps were not shunted, or placed in an ammo can. Caps in question were placed in C4 and carried in ruck sacks.

Hmmmm

That was March 89. It involved split teams from 593 and 596 and took 11 of our boys out....jd