Crap...  I forgot about that yesterday...  That was one fucked up day at Bragg.  I was 1SG for a MI unit that was in Old Division...  Not only was it Division...  but 525MI had a jump going too.  The Division jumper were literally getting strapped into the bird that got hit... 525 was chuting up on the grass and going through the mockups.

Damnest thing that day.  Two of my troops were supposed to jump with 525.  I was driving back to the Company when I saw the smoke plume from Green Ramp...  some AirForce types in a CUCV PU come screaming down Riley Road literally standing up in the bed... I looked them and they pointed to the smoke.  Thats when I realized this was bad.  By time I got to the company the gate to Green Ramp from Old Division was limited access...  Still had troops on a handgun range though I needed to check on too.  I went in the Orderly Room and called the section where the two jumpers worked to tell them to direct any questions from the family to us...  One of the troops that was supposed to jump answered the phone.  He said I never told him that he or the other trooper was supposed to jump.  I just sat down.  I had just come off of two years as a S3 NCO and NEVER missed a tasking, commitment, or anything.  Didn't even have to go to IPRs... just called and said we were on time and on target...  I was never so relieved to have screwed up in my life. 

Womack ran out of morphine that night by 10PM...  58's and 60's were flying all over NC, SC, and VA picking up what ever morphine supplies that could begged or borrowed.  Some of the burn victims were taking doses of morphine strong enough to kill two bull elephants. 

The blast from the F16 and C141 exploding extending from the parking space on the Ramp all the way into the mockup and vehicle parking area.  To the extent that several cars parked there were gutted. 

They hung the cause for the accident on a ATC trainee and his supervisor in the Pope Tower.  Some have debated having slow and fast movers on the same air base because of danger having aircraft with different speeds in the landing pattern.  Nothing happened to the F16 crew though to my knowledge. 

We still had troopers coming back from Brooke till the day I retired...

That day truly sucked... 

What really matters is whats over the next hill, what the other guy can do, and is it gonna rain, snow, blow and in what combination...

After reading all of this i am a loss for words ,Truley a bad day at FT. Bragg

Hats off and a prayer  for my 82nd  Airborne Brothers

Drive On

I was ay Bragg that day, damn don't seem like 10 years.  I still remember what I was, my squad had received a three day pass, my roommate and I went down to Stryker to play some golf.  On the front nine we start to notice a whole hell of a lot of choppers flying by.  I was a cherry and didn't think anything of it.  When we get back to the barracks I've got 5 messages from my Mom.  Seems it was all over the news and she couldn't get in touch with me.  Called and said that I was OK. My squad leader was a student at JM school at the time and he was right there when it happened.

May our brothers rest in peace.

Never heard of the incident cited below either:

Newfoundland has a sad connection to the modern day 101st Airborne. On December 12, 1985, Arrow Air flight 1285, a DC-8-63 charter carrying 248 passengers and a crew of eight crashed upon takeoff at Gander International Airport killing everyone on board. Most of the dead were members of the 3d Battalion, 502d Infantry, 101st Airborne Division; eleven were from other Forces Command units; and one was a CID agent from the Criminal Investigations Command. It was the largest one day loss in the 101st Airborne Division’s history. They were returning home to Fort Campbell, Kentucky from a six-month peacekeeping mission in the Sinai with the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO). The MFO’s mission was to implement security provisions contained in the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty. The flight had left Cairo, Egypt and landed in Cologne, Germany. After a stopover there, it took off for Gander, Newfoundland, Canada, landing there to refuel.

When the plane crashed, local firefighters and rescuers had to make their way through the forest to put out the resulting fire. They were met with a gruesome scene. A local fellow wrote on a website about the crash, “My uncle was the first person on the scene of the crash...he was a military police officer in Gander at that time, and anytime I ask him about the crash, he breaks into tears. He saw what no human should ever have to see.”

U.S. Navy personnel stationed at Gander were the first Americans at the site and assisted the Airport officials and Canadian Forces personnel stationed in Gander in securing the site. According to the rules established by the International Civil Aviation Organization the responsibility for investigating an airplane crash rests with the country in which it occurred. The RCMP conducted recovery operations, mapping out the crash site into numbered grids. A hanger at the airport was used as a temporary morgue. The U.S. Army sent up a team of pathologists and grave registration specialists to help recover the remains and begin the task of identifying them. U.S. Navy personnel at Argentia also became involved in helping with the logistical and communications work. Three days later the RCMP stated that they thought they had recovered all the remains, but pathologists at Air Force Port Mortuary at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware where the remains had been flown, later determined that there were still two soldiers unaccounted for.

A snowfall made it difficult to continue with the search. They had to build shelters over each part of the crash site, and use propane burners to melt the snow. Finally by early February, they found the remains of the last soldier under the roots of a tree which they believed had been knocked over during the crash, and the body ended up in the cavity under the tree, which somehow sprang back up, hiding it from view.

Why did the plane crash?

The cause of the crash is still under contention all these years later. According to the Associated Press, an anonymous caller claimed responsibility on behalf of Islamic Jihad, but this claim was dismissed by both the Canadian and U.S. Governments, stating that the plane didn’t explode until it hit the ground. The Canadian Aviation Safety Board (CASB) was split down the middle, with five investigators concluding that the plane stalled because of icing on the wings. They also mentioned problems with an engine, and slow takeoff speeds. Four of the investigators disagreed vehemently with this. They believed there was an in-flight detonation from an explosive or incendiary device causing an on-board fire and a massive loss of power before it crashed. But they couldn’t establish a direct link between the suspected fire and the loss of power. Of course in the absence of a definitive answer, other theories, including conspiracy theories, have emerged. You can check out the official reports, and some of the other theories at this website:

http://www.sandford.org/gandercrash/

The creator of the website subscribes to the bomb theory, and mentions numerous suspicious incidents that occurred in Cairo before the plane was loaded. I am not endorsing that theory by putting the link here, it just happens to be a site with the official reports, and his own theory.

In a letter in the guest book on the website, Clyde Roach, a pilot and flying instructor who had flown the particular plane that crashed (it was once owned by Eastern Airlines) wrote about the investigation he did when he was asked to testify at a wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of the second officer of the crew. He disputes both the icing and bomb theories, believing that the plane was overloaded, one engine lost power, and the pilots reacted incorrectly.

Two different soldiers had expressed concerns to relatives about the plane. According to a Canadian Press report, one of them, Captain Edward J. Manion, called his wife 48 hours before he left Cairo, and told her he had “no confidence in that plane.” He said, “I’m going to survive the Sinai, but I’m not going to survive the trip home on the plane.” Another soldier, Specialist Jeff Kee had sent a tape back to his fiancee in which he said” “I just hope.. everything goes alright...I hope the plane gets back all right, cause.. the plane we fly on is really bad.” (Reported in The Evening Telegram, December 17, 1985)

The Canadian government wasn’t satisfied with the inconclusive report, and appointed a former Supreme Court Justice to review the record of the crash. His report was equally ambiguous. In 1990 the U.S. House of Representatives conducted a two-day hearing on the accident, which focused on the role of their agencies in the investigations. The fact that there was no definite cause established, has just added to the families’ pain. The guest book of the website I’ve mentioned has numerous posts from families of the victims, and it’s obvious that their grief is still quite strong, seventeen years later.

http://www.sandford.org/gandercrash/guestbook

Vee