Sabotage ruled out as causing air disaster

Press, 14 December 1985, Page 10

Sabotage ruled out as causing air disaster

NZPA-Reuter Gander, Newfoundland Sabotage has been excluded as causing a chartered jetliner to crash yesterday, killing 250 American soldiers on their way home from the Middle East for Christmas. It was the eighth-worst military air disaster in aviation history. The eight civilian crew members also perished. A United States Defence Department investigator said that a preliminary investigation of the crash had ruled out sabotage. There was no indication that “hostile action” had downed the DCB, he said. Investigators recovered the cockpit voice-recorder and flight data-recorder from the aircraft, which crashed at 11.20 p.m. (New Zealand time) as it took off from Gander on the final leg of its flight from Cairo

to Kentucky. The recorders were found among the debris of the crash, which included children’s clothing and other gifts bought by the soldiers for families and friends at home.

The chief investigator, Peter Boag, of the Canadian Aviation Safety Board, said that the recorders appeared to have suffered some fire damage, which could make it “a time-consuming effort to get information from the units.”

Canadian authorities said that the plane, owned by Arrow Airlines, of Miami, Florida, had lifted off from a slippery runway at a temperature of -4deg. after freezing rain and snow had fallen overnight. But the weather did not appear to be a factor, they said. The plane had made a previous fuel stop in Cologne, West Germany.

The soldiers, 247 men and three women of the 3rd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, were en route to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, after completing six months of duty in Sinai, in the Middle East.

They included infantrymen and paratroopers and were headed for their airborne division’s base where relatives, officers and a military band were preparing to welcome them home. Shocked families of the troops learned of the crash only hours after some of their loved ones had telephoned them from Gander during the refuelling stop. In Washington a Pentagon official said that the remains of the dead were being put in a temporary morgue set up at Gander airport. They would eventually be flown in a Star Lifter military aircraft to Dover

Air Force Base, Delaware, where forensic. experts would complete identification of as many as possible. A spokesman for Arrow Airlines said that the plane was under charter ' to the Multinational Force and' Observers, which has its headquarters in Rome. . 1 ; Asked about reports that Arrow had had safety problems with the United States Federal; Aviation Administration, a Pentagon spokesman said that the airline had been checked by the United States ..Military Airlift Commands in February and found satisfactory.

. But the F.A.A. in * Washington said that Arrow ihad been cited for several safety problems and fined $U534,000 ($64,260) in.Jiine. An. F.A.A. spokesman said that the airline had failed to perform required inspections and maintenance on its aircraft. - < : :>