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Investigators from Canada's Aviation Safety Board, who rushed to oversee what may be a lengthy probe, were weighing several factors that might have played a role in the crash. Some U.S. air-safety experts, who had no firsthand information, pointed to the weather: ice had formed on other planes at Gander that night, and some pilots had taken deicing precautions. Captain John Griffin of the doomed aircraft had not. Other experts noted that the 90-ton aircraft, packed to capacity and loaded with more than 60 tons of fuel, may have been approaching its maximum load for a safe takeoff.
Questions were raised as well about the maintenance record of the stretched- out DC-8, which was built in 1969 and had logged 50,000 flying hours for a succession of five owners. The plane's final owner, Miami-based Arrow Air, has a less than exemplary record. After inspections last year, the Federal Aviation Administration fined Arrow for faulty record keeping on its maintenance procedures, for using outdated service manuals and providing inadequate instruction to maintenance personnel. The small airline and charter service sometimes shuttles troops for the U.S Air Force's Military Airlift Command, but Arrow was flying the soldiers of the 101st on a contract with the ten-nation Multi-National Force and Observers organization.
The doomed members of the Third Battalion, 502nd Infantry, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) were part of a U.S. force of 779 troopers being rotated out of the Sinai, where they had manned observation posts and checkpoints to enforce Camp David Peace Treaty accords against Egyptian or Israeli military use of the region. Two hundred and fifty soldiers had arrived home by charter earlier in the month, and the final detachment was scheduled to arrive at Fort Campbell this week.
After leaving their encampment at the Red Sea port of Sharm el Sheikh, the high-spirited Americans, dressed for the most part in blue jeans and tennis shoes, spent a day at Cairo's luxurious Hyatt El Salam Hotel. Many soldiers stopped in the Hyatt's Bazaar Shop to buy such Christmas gifts as papyrus, Arabic phrase books and necklaces adorned with Sphinx pendants. "They were laughing and dancing a little to the belly-dance music playing in the shop," recalled Proprietor Nagui Makari. The Americans, guarded by Egyptian uniformed police and plainclothesmen, enjoyed an early-afternoon meal in the grand ballroom, dining on tomato soup, roast chicken and French pastry. One of the officers offered a prayer: "We are going home. We have finished our job. Let us thank God."
When the soldiers left Cairo International Airport Wednesday evening, a quirk of fate saved Private First Class Eric Harrington of Lake City, Fla. The unhappy soldier could not find his passport, and he was sent back to Sharm el Sheikh to await this week's rotation home. His buddies departed on a 1,900- mile flight to Cologne, West Germany, where the DC-8 landed for a 90-minute refueling stop. Security there was described as tight. After a 2,700-mile Atlantic crossing, the plane touched down at Gander to refuel again for the final, 1,700-mile leg to Kentucky.