FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. (Dec. 10, 2015) -- In the mid-1980s, Robert Smith was a Military Police corporal with the Canadian Forces stationed at Canadian Forces Base Gander, Newfoundland. At the time there were only about 500 service members stationed at the base, including a detachment of about 30 U.S. Navy sailors.
"It's a nice little town. It's got a good history of looking after American citizens," Smith said. "That was even more so on the day of the airplane crash. The town there did as much as they could."
Smith was assigned to Gander in 1984 and helped with airplane emergencies as part of his everyday duties. So on Dec. 12, 1985, when Arrow Air Flight 1285 went down, Smith was among the first responders.
"I was contacted by my boss and told to report into work and all I knew at the time was that it was an airplane emergency," Smith said. "Well most of the ones we had at Gander Airport at the time involved these small little commuter planes and usually, they all ended without incident."
Occasionally a plane would have a technical issue, such as a warning light flashing, and the MPs would have to respond to the airport as a precaution. Smith said he did not expect this call to be any different.
"When I got to the crash site I was just stunned," Smith said. "I couldn't believe that this plane -- there was really nothing left of it except for one or two engines. It basically disintegrated when it hit the ground."
The flight was carrying 248 Soldiers assigned or attached to the 3rd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, who were returning to Fort Campbell following a Multinational Force and Observers peacekeeping mission in the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. There also were eight crew members on board. The plane stopped to refuel and its wings iced over during the stop, which caused the plane to crash just after takeoff. There were no survivors.
"I've been to plane crashes before, but usually it was a helicopter crash and there'd be one or two fatalities," Smith said. "But this was completely overwhelming."
It took Smith a few minutes to regain his composure as he took in the amount of damage and the smell of the fumes from the burning plane. He also remembers seeing Christmas presents strewn about the wreckage.
"When we went down there, we thought 'There's got to be survivors,'" Smith said. "And then when there wasn't any -- but the response to the crash, I don't think you could have had any better response by all the agencies that were involved."
Smith was first assigned to guard the perimeter while the wreckage was being assessed.
Additionally he assisted the Naval detachment with removal of remains and preparation for transport back to the United States.
"We treated them with the utmost respect," Smith said. "The American sailors even held a prayer vigil for the fallen and their Families after the crash. I thought that was a touching moment because they didn't have to do that, they wanted to do it."
Smith even helped the chaplain collect the identification tags from the deceased in the morgue.
"I assisted him doing that duty because as you can imagine with all the fatalities involved it was a bit of an overwhelming task for him to do it alone," he said.
The recovery of remains took about 20 hours because of the rugged terrain around where the plane crashed. There were no roads out to the area.
"It took a while to get to a roadway where the bodies could be taken to a temporary morgue," he said. "All the bodies were taken to an airplane hangar -- probably the size of something you would put a 737 jet inside -- and all the bodies were laid out there in rows in a secure hangar until the folks from Bethesda, Maryland, flew up there to bring all the bodies back for examination."
As the remains were loaded onto the plane to return to the U.S., Smith said, all of the officers on the base formed an honor guard to salute the caskets.
At the crash site, a Canadian Mounted Police forensic investigation unit came to investigate what caused the incident.
Smith changed duty stations the next year. He received a letter of appreciation from Maj. Gen. John Crosby, assistant deputy chief of staff for personnel in 1986, thanking him for his efforts "to control access to the site, recover the remains and personal effects, and to assure the dignified care of our Soldiers."
He returned to the base this year for the first time since the crash to see the Silent Witness Memorial.
"It's a peaceful site compared to the chaos that went on the day when I arrived there," Smith said.
"One of the nice things about going there is the fact that there's a brook that runs through the memorial site and there's a little bridge over it. It's just very peaceful to hear the water of the brook when you're standing there looking at the site -- at the flag poles, at the cross, at the statue that's there with the two children. It just sort of calms you down." Today, 30 years later, if visitors stand at the crash site they will have an unobstructed view out onto the lake because only the grass has grown back.
"It's as if someone cleared out a section of bush," Smith said. "There's no trees or small saplings that have come back."
There is, however, a memorial cross made out of the wreckage of the plane.
Smith recently took part in the repatriations of Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan, saluting them as the caskets were taken off the airplane. Standing with Families of the fallen made him begin to wonder about the Families of the fallen Soldiers of Arrow Air Flight 1285.
"I look at it as a way of closing the loop, I guess," Smith said.
"I just want to make sure the Families are doing as well as can be expected. I think there were some wives left behind that were pregnant at the time, so there's going to be a lot of kids that really have no memory of their fathers that were killed in this crash."
Smith and his wife are attending the 30th anniversary memorial ceremonies on Dec. 12 at Fort Campbell and Hopkinsville to finally answer his own questions about how the Families are coping after 30 years.
"I think I speak for all the first responders that were there, we hope the Families are doing well and we wish them all the best," Smith said. "We treated your fallen like brothers and we certainly hope that all of you are doing well, wishing you the best. And hopefully you have a Merry Christmas, too."
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