Flight paths
A Canadian girl’s kind gesture turned into an international outpouring of support for victims of a tragic plane crash in Newfoundland.
On December 12, 1985, 248 American soldiers and 8 crew members died in a plane crash in Gander, Newfoundland, on their way home from a peacekeeping mission in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
The crash of Arrow Air Flight 1285 remains the largest aviation disaster on Canadian soil.
When it happened I was just fifteen, living in Oakville, Ontario, and concerned mostly with school and boys. I didn’t pay much attention to the news. But my mom explained that the impact of this accident was as though all the students from ten classrooms in my high school had each had someone die in their family, right before Christmas. That’s what it would have been like for the families of those soldiers and the flight crew, all stationed at the same army base.
The story hit home.
I asked her what Canadians were doing to show we cared. She didn’t know.
That night, I wrote a letter to the Toronto Star, indicating that I would like to donate my babysitting money to start a fund to plant trees as a living memorial for each soldier and crew member who died that day. That was it. I was only fifteen. What could I possibly do to make a difference?
The news wires picked it up, and TV, radio, and newspaper reporters started to call. Even my neighbours, who were visiting Mexico for Christmas, read about me while on their vacation. It was all kind of surreal.
But the turning point in my story came when Frank Lockyear — a businessman from Washington State who had replanted a memorial forest after the eruption of Mount St. Helens volcano in 1980 — heard a radio story about my quest.
The soldiers who died had been members of the 101st Airborne Division based in Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Frank contacted the division to alert them of my desire to honour their fallen comrades. The division graciously offered an acre of land on its base where we could plant the trees. Ontario-based Sheridan Nurseries generously donated and shipped 256 Canadian sugar maples to Fort Campbell.
In September 1986, I travelled to Fort Campbell to help to dedicate this new forest. My dream of planting a living memorial for each soldier and crew member of Arrow Air Flight 1285 became a reality that day.
Following the event, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney honoured me, and I was even chosen as a junior citizen of Ontario. I greatly appreciated the accolades — but they weren’t the point.
My only goal was to show our American neighbours that Canadians truly cared for their loss.
Fast-forward twenty-five years. I’m married, and my husband and I decided to take our four children to Kentucky to show our kids what their mom had been a part of as a teenager.
When we arrived at Fort Campbell, a security guard asked us the purpose of our visit. I told her I wanted to show my kids the trees I’d helped to plant twenty-five years earlier.
The guard dropped her pen, and her eyes welled up with tears. “My cousin was on that plane,” she said. “Not a day goes by when I drive by those trees and don’t think about him. Thank you for doing what you did.”
In 2019, with some of the original trees diseased or dying, a decision was made to move the memorial forest to a larger plot of land, located nearby, to give the trees more room to grow and to thrive. I was honoured to be asked to take part in the rededication ceremony. Words can’t describe the experience. It was amazing.
Visitors to the memorial forest can read a plaque that speaks to the close ties of friendship between our two nations. It reads: “Donated by the people of Canada to the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) in memory of the 248 courageous soldiers who died in Gander, Newfoundland, December 12, 1985. Each tree stands as a living memorial. The forest testifies to the united commitment to global peacekeeping. ’Blessed are the peacemakers’ St. Matthew 5:9.”
The victims of this tragedy were American, but their story is a part of Canadian history that deserves to be remembered — and honoured.