Danger Bird, he flies alone

 And he rides the wind back to his home

Although his wings have turned to stone (N. Young)

so i am watching the news and they were doing a story about the Lockerbie bombing that happened 35 years ago today.....and it got me thinking about another horrific air disaster....one that is not remembered or talked about in pop culture....one that occured around Christmas, one that killed 248 US Army Servicemen and women, one that Islamic Jihad took credit for but the US and Canadian Govt dismissed as an aviation accident.

On Dec 12th 1985 Arrow Air stopped in Gander Newfoundland to refuel on its journey from West Germany to Ft Campbell , Kentucky. ( 2 months prior i was on Arrow Air in the opposite direction, my flight went from Norfolk to Bangor Maine before refueling for our flight across that Atlantic Ocean and ultimately Diego Garcia)

Flight 1285 took off and apparently stalled and crashed less than a mile down the road from the airport ...all passenger and crew were killed on impact. The US & Canadian Govts investigated and came to the conclusion that ice on the wings was the culprit.... even though experts testified that there was no way possible that ice could bring down a DC-8....even though an islamic jihad group took credit for a bomb, even though the investigation also raised concerns that the weight of the plane was underestimated, and that extra weight created a drag that the engine could not overcome. 

NOPE...it was ice ......after all these years i guess it doesn't matter......but it always stuck with me. Arrow Air was a commercial airline that basically served the Department of Defense....after the accident ALL Arrow Airplanes were grounded. Eventually they lost their DOD contracts and went out of business. 7 months later i flew home from the indian ocean for the grand Reopening of the Statue of Liberty and all of my flights were on Air Force c-140 cargo hops....we flew with pallets of equipment and were strapped into the jump seats that paratroopers would normally sit....but those are stories for another day.

After all these years i guess it doesn't matter.....unless that was your sibling, your child, your parent that was on their way home 2 weeks before Christmas. They suffered the cruelest of fates and their lives were surely changed if not destroyed. I don't think you get over that...i don't think you ever celebrate Christmas again.

What surely was a jovial and raucous group at takeoff for their final leg of their journey , saw joy turn to death in a flash......after all these years i guess it doesn't matter....but it does to me and i think about those families every year. It is one of the reasons that I always volunteered to take duty and stay on the ship Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.....so the guys with wives and children in the Jacksonville area could stay home for a respite. .....life is short 

And though these wings have turned to stone
I can fly, fly, fly away
Watch me fly above the city
Like a shadow on the sky