On the morning of December 12, 1985, at 6:45 local time (5:15 EST), Arrow Airlines flight 1285, a DC-8-63 charter carrying 248 passengers and a crew of 8, crashed just after takeoff from 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 passengers on the ill-fated charter were U.S. Soldiers. All but 12 were members of the 3d Battalion, 502d Infantry, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault); 11 were from other Forces Command units; and one was a CID agent form the Criminal Investigations Command.

Perhaps no other event in its peacetime history has so wrenched the soul and torn at the heart of the U.S. Army as the Gander tragedy, which ranked as the worst military air disaster in the nation’s history.

The aircraft stalled and crashed during takeoff. There is controversy surrounding this crash. The majority opinion of the investigating board was that the cause of the sequence leading up to the stall and crash could not be determined, with icing a possibility. The minority opinion was that the crash was possibly caused by detonations of unknown origin in a cargo compartment which led to an in-flight fire and loss of control of the aircraft.

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Comment: The Arrow Airlines flight 1285 crashed at Gander Newfoundland while attempting to take off, killing all 256 military passengers and crew aboard. Icing was the most likely cause although some believe a bomb was planted aboard the aircraft.