So these are plane crashes from around the world, but it's only for the countries that had a true crime case, if you don't see a plane crash in here, check my True crime from around the world book.
Warning, this book contains plane crashes and the a...
These two plane crashes take us to the country of Canada which is located north of the United States of America and east of Alaska.
WARNINGS OF PLANE CRASHES
Number 1- Arrow Air Flight 1285R
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Pictured above is the wreckage of the plane.
Arrow Air Flight 1285R was an international charter flight carrying U.S. Army personnel from Cairo, Egypt, to their home base in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, via Cologne, West Germany, and Gander, Newfoundland. On the morning of Thursday, 12th of December 1985, shortly after takeoff from Canada's Gander International Airport en route to Fort Campbell, the McDonnell Douglas DC-8 serving the flight stalled, crashed, and burned about half a mile from the runway, killing all 248 passengers and 8 crew members on board. As of 2025, it is the deadliest aviation accident to occur on Canadian soil. At the time of the crash, it was the deadliest aviation accident involving a DC-8; it's death toll was surpassed by the crash of Nigeria Airways Flight 2120 nearly six years later.
The accident was investigated by the Canadian Aviation Safety Board (CASB), which determined that 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 before impact, with one of these dissenting investigators later telling a United States congressional committee that a thin layer of ice could not bring down the aircraft. The dissenting report led to delays in changes to de-icing procedures, and a thin layer of ice caused the deadly crashes of Air Ontario Flight 1363 in Canada in 1989 and USAir Flight 405 in 1992.
In response to lack of confidence in accident investigations by the CASB, the Government of Canada shut the board down in 1990, replacing it with an independent, multi-modal investigative agency – the Transportation Safety Board of Canada.
The aircraft, a McDonnell Douglas DC-8-63CF, was chartered to carry U.S. Army personnel, all but 12 of them 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, November 950 Juliet Whisky) was manufactured in 1969, and was first delivered to Eastern Air Lines and then leased to other airlines before being leased to Arrow Air under it's owner/parent company, International Air Leases.
The flight was made up of three legs, with refuelling stops in Cologne and Gander. The aircraft departed Cairo at 20:35pm UTC on Wednesday 11th of December 1985, and arrived at Cologne on Thursday 12th of December 1985, at 01:21am UTC.
A new flight crew, consisting of Captain John Griffin and First Officer Joseph Connelly (both 45), and Flight Engineer Michael Fowler (48), boarded the aircraft before it departed for Gander at 02:50am UTC. The aircraft arrived at Gander International Airport (IATA: YQX, ICAO: CYQX) at 09:04am, where passengers departed the aircraft while the aircraft was refuelled. Witnesses reported that the flight engineer conducted an external inspection of the aircraft, after which the passengers re-boarded the aircraft.
