Tennessee bridge to bear Gander's name in Arrow Air memorial
Last Updated: Saturday, October 7, 2006 | 11:35 AM NT
CBC News
A Tennessee teenager has inspired her city to name a bridge after Gander in a memorial to about 250 U.S. peacekeepers who died in a plane crash near the central Newfoundland town in 1985.
The city council in Clarksville, Tenn., voted unanimously on Thursday to name a bridge after Gander, the community nearest the site where the Arrow Air DC-8 jet went down in the worst aviation disaster on Canadian soil.
The council made the move in response to a campaign started by a Clarksville teen, Leora Smith, 14, who discovered while researching an essay on the disaster that there were monuments in the region but her own city did not have an official memorial.
"I spoke to a couple of people involved and when I was talking to them, it was just the pain and the realization that nothing had really been done kind of moved [me]," she told CBC News this week.
Clarksville expects to build the Gander, Newfoundland Memorial Bridge within a year.
The troops had been serving as peacekeepers in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and were returning home for Christmas holidays to their base at Fort Campbell, Ky., not far from Clarksville.
Less than a minute after taking off from the Gander International Airport on Dec. 12, 1985, the chartered plane crashed into a sloping field, killing 248 U.S. troops and eight crew members.
Soldier's widow impressed by teen's initiative
Madeline Haller, whose husband, Brian, was killed in the disaster, said she was impressed by Smith's initiative.
"It's pretty amazing for a 14-year-old to be taking on such a mission," she said.
"I'm pretty amazed with her public service and interest in something that happened long before she was even born."
The disaster site in Gander was turned into a memorial, which includes a striking statue of a U.S. peacekeeper with two children.
The Arrow Air disaster has been the subject of speculation since it happened. The formal report filed by the former Canadian Aviation Safety Board determined that ice on the jet's wings led to the crash.
However, a minority report filed by board members insisted that was improbable.
As well, records released after the investigation showed that soldiers had inhaled smoke in the moments before they died.
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