Arrow Air Flight 1285
Wreckage from Arrow Air Flight 1285 in storage at a Gander Airport hangar on December 16, 1985
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| Accident summary | |
|---|---|
| Date | 12 December 1985 |
| Summary | Icing conditions, weight and reference speeds miscalculation (on board fire and possible internal explosion per minority report) |
| Site |
Gander, Newfoundland, Canada 48°54′43″N 54°34′27″W / 48.91194°N 54.57417°WCoordinates: 48°54′43″N 54°34′27″W / 48.91194°N 54.57417°W |
| Passengers | 248 |
| Crew | 8 |
| Fatalities | 256 (all) |
| Survivors | 0 |
| Aircraft type | McDonnell Douglas DC-8-63CF |
| Operator | Arrow Air |
| Registration | N950JW |
| Flight origin | Cairo International Airport, Egypt |
| Stopover |
Cologne Bonn Airport, West Germany |
| Last stopover | Gander International Airport, Newfoundland, Canada |
| Destination | Fort Campbell, Kentucky, United States |
 Pre-crash photos of the DC-8 in service with Arrow Air and other airline companies at Airliners.net
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Arrow Air Flight 1285 was a McDonnell Douglas DC-8 jetliner that operated as an international charter flight carrying U.S. troops from Cairo, Egypt, to their home base in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, via Cologne, West Germany and Gander, Canada.
On the morning of Thursday, 12 December 1985, shortly after takeoff from Gander en route to Fort Campbell, the aircraft stalled, crashed, and burned about half a mile from the runway, killing all 248 passengers and 8 crew members on board. As of December 2015, it has the highest death toll of any aviation accident on Canadian soil and the second-highest of any accident involving a DC-8, behind the crash of Nigeria Airways Flight 2120 six years later.
The accident was investigated by the Canadian Aviation Safety Board (CASB), which determined the probable cause of the crash was the aircraft's unexpectedly high drag and reduced lift condition, most likely due to ice contamination on the wings' leading edges and upper surfaces, as well as underestimated onboard weight. A minority report stated that the accident could have been caused by an onboard explosion of unknown origin prior to impact.
The aircraft, a McDonnell Douglas DC-8-63CF, was chartered to carry U.S. Army personnel, all members of the 101st Airborne Division, back to their base in Fort Campbell, Kentucky. They had completed a six-month deployment in the Sinai, in the Multinational Force and Observers peacekeeping mission. The DC-8 involved in the accident (registration N950JW) had been constructed in 1969, and had been leased to Arrow Air by its owner/parent company, International Air Leases.
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