Gary Collins - Where Eagles Lie Fallen: The Crash of Arrow Air Flight 1285, Gander, Newfoundland

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Collins, Gary, 1949
Where eagles lie fallen : the crash of Arrow Air flight 1285, Gander,
Newfoundland / Gary Collins.

ISBN 978-1-897317-67-9

1. Arrow Air Flight 1285 Crash, Gander, N.L., 1985. 2. United
States. Army. Airborne Division, 101stHistory. 3. Aircraft accidents
Newfoundland and LabradorGander. I. Title.

TL553.53.C3C65 2010 363.1246509718 C2010-904759-1

2010 by Gary Collins

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We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) for our publishing activities; the Canada Council for the Arts which last year invested $20.1 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada; the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation.

Terrible, sudden death comes with a feeling that sinks into your mind and nauseates your gut. You know that it is true, as unbelievable as it may seem. You know you must face it. You know there is nothing you can do to stop it. You are consumed. Why it happened and how it could be are simply questions. You really dont want to know or even care for the answer. You just want it not to be.

I dedicate this book to the Fallen Eagles of the Arrow Air Gander crash. All of them. I guess in the end, war is wherever you find it.

For like a Child sent with a fluttering Light
To feel his way along a gusty Night
Man walks the World: again and yet again
The Lamp shall be by Fits of Passion slain:
But shall not He who sent him from the Door
Relight the Lamp once more, and yet once more?
THE RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM

I carried you on eagles wings
and brought you to myself.
EXODUS 19:4

I STOOD FOR A long while next to the bronze likeness of the tall soldier guarding the two young children, a small boy and a girl. The soldier bore no arms. The faces of all three wept patina in pale green streaks that always sought out the gleaming metal and quickly aged it, blending it with the ancient land upon which it forever stands. Above me and behind the sculptures, three flags hung limp on their steel masts. The Stars and Stripes of America, the bright red Maple Leaf of Canada, and Newfoundlands own geometric design. A silent witness.

I thought I would find an immediate inspiration here, some hidden muse emanating from the chiselled forms, like you see in the movies or read about in a book. I touched the hand of the boy who carried an olive branch. His metal skin was frigid. His face seemed etched with a faint, hopeful smile. The girl looked up anxiously at her grim-faced protector. The olive branch was missing from her hand. Surely no vandal could stoop so low as to deny the child her peace symbol. My hand felt nothing but the cold of senseless, unfeeling metal. No hidden voices whispering to me.

I sat below the witnesses and waited, for what I didnt know. I just somehow knew I should stay for a while where so many had died needlessly.

This cleared track of wooded land above the long Gander Lake reached halfway to the top of a south-facing ridge. It was late April. A few deep, tree-filled valleys still held their cold white blanket of winter. As I pondered what had happened here on this quiet piece of land not all that long ago, the sun burst huge through a hole in the cloud cover and instantly splashed across the soldier and the childrens faces. I hadnt noticed before, but this stretch of earth was almost bare of snow, catching every warming angle from the southern sky, while off to the forested sides and lingering among the black tree trunks, trails of dirty snow criss-crossed the ground.