Ft. Campbell Salutes Soldiers Lost in Crash
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FT. CAMPBELL, Ky. — Air raid sirens wailed and flags were lowered to half-staff on Friday, the first anniversary of the Gander, Newfoundland, plane crash that killed 248 soldiers returning to this base.
Troops representing each of the units based at Ft. Campbell, headquarters of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division, shivered in the early-morning cold as they stood at attention while a soldier played taps and comrades and relatives of the dead sang patriotic songs.
The soldiers, who were returning from a six-month tour in Egypt, died when their DC-8 charter jetliner crashed on takeoff after a stopover in Gander. There were no survivors.
It was the nation’s worst peacetime military aviation accident.
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