Community members and family of the fallen gathered on Thursday for a ceremony remembering the 248 soldiers and eight flight crew members who died in a plane crash in Gander, Newfoundland on December 12, 1985.
The flight was traveling from Cairo, Egypt to Fort Campbell, and on board were soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division. The lives of those lost 39 years ago were remembered at the Gander Memorial in Hopkinsville with a ceremony and wreath laying.
The ceremony got underway with the singing of the National Anthem and an invocation by Army veteran and pastor Harry Todd who recognized the pain of the families who lost a loved one on that fateful day. Todd was Fort Campbell’s Garrison Command Sergeant Major following the Gander plane crash.
Colonel James Stultz the Commander of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team was the ceremony’s keynote speaker. Stultz says after the plane crash there was a second tragedy, the grief and the survivor’s guilt that continues to be felt by family and service members nearly 40 years after the crash. He says it’s important to remember those who died, say their names and to live in honor of them.
Michelle Smith of Hopkinsville is a military veteran who served at Fort Campbell and attended the ceremony. She says she was in high school when the Gander plane crash happened, but once she joined the Army, she came across people that were impacted by the tragedy.
Smith shared that she became friends with Barbara Smedley Foskey Richardson who was the wife of Sergeant Thomas Foskey who died in the plane crash. Smedley passed away in 2019 and Smith says whenever she passes the Gander Memorial on Fort Campbell, she says a prayer for the pair and their daughter.
Along with the ceremony held in Hopkinsville, ceremonies were also hosted in Fort Campbell and in Gander, Newfoundland.
