Today (December 12, 2015) is the 30th Anniversary of the Arrow Air Crash, the worst
civil aviation disaster in United States Military history, and the worst
disaster in Canadian aviation.
Short form of what happened: The facts are that on December 12, 1985, a
Arrow Air DC-8 took off from Gander International airport, with a crew
of six and 248 soldiers of the 101st Airborne. The soldiers were flying
home for Christmas after serving as peacekeepers in Beirut. The plane
left the runway and immediately crashed, belly flopping into the woods
overlooking Gander lake. All were killed. (It actually could have been
worse - the crew had the choice of taking off over the lake or taking
off over the town of Gander. As somebody who grew up there, I can be
glad the pilot choose the lake route, as if the incident had happened
over the town, the DC-8 would have taken out the local fire station on
crashing, and Gander would have a name like Lockerbie, Scotland.)
As to the causes of the crash, well, it is a mess. I could do an
effortpost on this subject, but it is safe to say the causes are
controversial, and several questions remain in a superposition that are
unlikely to collapse into an answer anytime soon. Unlike in America, the
remains of the DC-8 were disposed of after investigation, so there is
nothing left to base further inquiry on. The DC-8 was very run down,
with its cockpit monitors capturing nothing, and its flight recorder a
1950s model so badly out of adjustment, the only data recorded was when
the DC-8 left the runway. FBI explosive experts sent to Gander to help
with the investigation (like in the later Lockerbie bombing, where the
FBI helped extensively) were mysteriously recalled and sent home as soon
as they arrived, and the crash was almost immediately attributed to ice
on the wings.
Later investigation by CASB, the body charged with air crash
investigation, only managed to confirm that ice on the wings could not
have been the cause. CASB and its chief investigator (in his first and
last air crash investigation, his previous experience in air crash
investigation being limited to a two week FAA course taken in Los
Angeles) doggedly maintained the ice on the wings thesis in the face of
further evidence. Here's our first superposition - CASB did this because
[they were really incompetent / somebody told them to make the findings
as uncontroversial as possible.] Ronald Reagen actually had several
reasons to ask his BFF Canadian PM Brian Mulroney to intervene. For one,
Arrow Air was used by the CIA to smuggle weapons to Iran, a larger
piece of the yet-undiscovered Iran-Contra affair. For another, Reagen's
popularity reached its lowest point with the bombing of the Beirut
barracks by terrorists. Given these involvements, it is possible Reagen
called on Mulroney fearing these things, but in fact Arrow Air crashed
for some other reason.
The DC-8 stopped in both Cairo and Cologne before flying across the
Atlantic. In Cairo, some of the soldier's gear was unloaded to make room
for large wooden crates, approximately coffin sized. This cargo was
accompanied by 2 well dressed men assumed to be secret-squirrel types by
the soldiers. Later investigation also revealed that security on the
apron was lax, with 'lots and lots of guys' hanging out with the baggage
crew. These were apparently Hawk missiles being returned by the
Iranians. An anonymous phone call to Reuters in Beirut the morning of
the crash claimed the wreck was the result of the Islamic Jihad, working
with an Egyptian terrorist group, and that the bomb was set to go off
as the airplane was landing in the United States, but the flight had
been delayed in Cairo. This call was repeated to the American
Consul-general in Algeria, and to an Italian news agency. (The 1980s saw
what us moderns would call a shitload of terrorist bombs claiming
airliners; something that we've sort of forgotten.) Post-mordem analysis
of the deceased flight crew revealed hydrogen cyanide in the blood of 6
of 8, with the flight engineer having already received a lethal dose.
The medical examiner ruled out anyone being able to survive the crash,
which meant the crew was breathing toxic fumes before the crash -
consistent with a fire. It turns out most of the remains that could be
tested showed signs of elevated carbon monoxide levels, elevated
hydrogen cyanide levels, or both. Any sort of mention of these
toxicology results was absent from CASB's final report. (CASB later
tried to dismiss the toxicology findings by saying that every person
that had these elevated levels had also survived the crash for about 30
seconds. Two problems here - the number of people with these elevated
levels is about 150, and apparently despite surviving these 150 people
made no attempts to escape the flaming wreck. Firemen on the scene
testified that saw no signs of people surviving the crash.)
Then there is the matter of the #4 engine, which apparently had its
thrust reverse extended, or was possibly at idle at the time of the
crash. These could have been the causes of the crash by itself, but were
never investigated by CASB, so it remains just another cat, state
unknown, in a box as far as explanations go.
And that's the gist of it really - CASB did such a bad job for whatever
reason that finding the real cause of the crash would have been easier
had the DC-8 gone done mid-Atlantic. The whole affair was investigated
by a Canadian supreme court justice. CASB claimed that it was Ice on the
wings that caused the crash, and some of CASB's board of directors said
an explosion, most likely a terrorist bomb. The supreme court justice,
Willard Estey, found that the evidence supported nether conclusion - a
minor vindication of the minority report, and a big stamp of "yes, the
investigation was screwed" over the whole portfolio. The bereaved of the
Arrow Air flight managed to get the matter an actual congressional
hearing, who then managed to get someone from transport Canada, who
claimed 1) there was no evidence whatsoever that ice was the cause of
the crash, 2) but that didn't stop him from signing off on the report
saying ice was the cause of the crash, because "nobody asked him", and
3) it wasn't ice, it was "freezing mist." The congressmen called him
crazy and derelict in his duty. Of course, saying that, the second day
of the hearing was also the last one, when the committee rather abruptly
gave a prepared statement saying that 1) them Canadians clearly fucked
up, and 2) we refer the whole thing to the Attorney General and the
executive (IE the President) to keep a eye on the whole thing.
So, the memorial is a nice place. It is situated on the North shore of
Gander lake - The lake runs roughly east-west, 20 km long but only 2 km
wide, a deep loch of a lake. The surrounding hillsides are black spruce,
birch, and fir. Juniper has grown up in the paths carved by the airport
firetrucks that raced to the crash. The statue itself is just after
where the runway lights end, down a road marked with the somewhat
incongruous "Screaming Eagle Head" of the 101st airborne. All of this is
beneath the level of the nearby trans-Canada highway, which isolates
the memorial from the highway noise. People walk their dogs there.
