"Gander Air Crash Inquiry May Shock"
by John Picton (from the "The Toronto Star", 1/28/90)
Shocking testimony will likely be heard at a planned inquiry into the Gander air crash to open in Washington next month.
It will concern a set of mysterious coffin-size boxes said to have been put secretly on the plane. And it
will be the result of detective work done by two private investigators who have looked into the crash -although their findings will describe two different scenarios.
The plane, an Arrow Air DC-8, was carrying 248 U.S. service personnel and a crew of eight when it crashed shortly after takeoff from Gander, Nfld., on Dec. 12, 1985.
On a vote of 5-4, the Canadian Aviation Safety Board ruled the probable cause of the accident was icing on the wings.
In a dissenting report, the four minority members of the board said they believe that "an in-flight fire that may have resulted from detonations of undetermined origin" was the cause.
Retired Supreme Court Judge Willard Estey reviewed the findings and decided there was no evidence of an explosion and that icing was the probable cause -though there was no evidence of that, either.
He said the safety board inquiry did hear evidence on the boxes and that they contained the soldiers' weapons and coffee machines.
More than 100 U.S. Congress members signed a letter three months ago asking president George Bush to open an additional inquiry into the incident, but he has not replied. Now, two congressional committees -the House Subcommittee on Crime and the Legislation and National Security Subcommittee- are planning to do so.
"There are entirely too many unanswered questions," said Congressman Robin Tallon of South Carolina, who's spearheading the move for a U.S. investigation.
"This is such a great mystery and I don't think we've heard anything that clears it up.
"I expect our inquiry to start in February. I have a feeling that our governmental agencies know much more about the crash than they are telling us.
"We are just going to continue to push. What we really need is subpoena power, which our committees have."
In an exclusive interview, one investigator has told The Sunday Star the boxes on board the Arrow Air flight contained the bodies of U.S. hostages and soldiers who died in a still-secret hostage-rescue mission in Lebanon.
The other said they contained light anti-tank weapons, illegally loaded on to the plane and illicitly destined for the U.S.-supported contra rebels fighting in Nicaragua.
Both, however, agree on two points: The plane was carrying members of a clandestine Delta Force team that had been bloodied in a failed attempt to free U.S. hostages.
There are similarities between the Gander crash and the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland in December, 1988.
"I have the testimony of Americans who put those boxes together," Juval Aviv, one of the investigators, said in an interview in New York.
"I have talked to people who put bodies in the boxes." Aviv, a former Israeli intelligence agent who now runs a security firm with offices on New York's fashionable Madison Ave., said the bodies could not be identified.
"They were in body bags."
Aviv is the man who was hired by Pan Am's insurance underwriters to investigate the circumstances surrounding the bombing of Flight 103.
His bombshell, 27-page report implied the plane was brought down by a secret cell within the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to silence another group of CIA agents on board.
Aviv still is working on the case and is questioning people in Europe (Flight 103 originated in Frankfurt, West Germany).
According to a colleague, he's being shadowed by undercover intelligence agents wherever he goes.
Investigators with the House crime subcommittee have requested an interview with Aviv.
George Wheaton of Anaheim, Calif., the other investigator, has been looking into the crash since last May, free of charge, on behalf of the families of the Gander victims. He, too, talks of the attempted hostage-rescue mission - carried out, he said, on Building Number 18 at the Sheik Abdullah barracks in Baalbek, Lebanon, shortly before the Gander incident.
"I have confirmed that there was an anti-terrorist rescue team on board," he said. "I have identified 20 of them, including 6 helicopter pilots."
Wheaton names two hostages he believes were killed in the raid, saying he has found no evidence they are still alive. His investigation has shown there was a model of the Barracks Number 18 kept at the headquarters of the National Security Agency in Washington, he said.
On Nov. 6, 1985, it was studied by a group headed by Lt.-Col. Oliver North, later found to have been the spearhead of the Iran-contra arms scandal.
The rescue mission, Wheaton said, was authorized by then-president Ronald Reagan, while its embarrassing failure was hushed up.
Wheaton, 54, bases his findings on interviews with contacts he built up as an investigator with the U.S. Army's criminal investigation department. He also was a special investigator with the U.S. Air Force and, including time with the U.S. Marines, spent 20 years in the armed forces.
Fluent in Farsi, the dominant language of Iran, this one-time Tulsa, Okla., policeman said he spent 15 years "off and on" in the Middle East for the U.S. military.
He was a consultant on drug trafficking to the late shah of Iran, was the man who organized the capture of former drug guru Dr. Timothy Leary, who was arrested in Afghanistan after escaping from a California jail, and was the adviser on the world's biggest drug bust at the time -the seizure of 12,722 kilos (28,047 pounds) of narcotics.
He said he still advises some Middle East Governments on counter-terrorism and drug smuggling.
The Arrow Air charter flight that crashed at Gander had been a happy one. It was carrying members of the U.S. 101st Airborne home for Christmas. During the fueling stop, the soldiers clattered off the plane in their 7-pound jumping boots, each pair of footwear containing a hidden knife, steel heels and toes crunching in the ice. They were laughing and singing carols, phoning home and buying last-minute gifts. One eyewitness said some bought sweatshirts that read: "I survived Gander."
There had been some curious elements at the start of the flight, about which the soldiers, four of them women, wouldn't have known.
The flight should have originated in the Sinai desert, where the troops had been part of a multi-national peacekeeping force. But it landed in Cairo and awaited the passengers there. Aviv said it was on the ground for four to five hours, awaiting the return of the Delta Force rescue team from Lebanon. During that time, despite a warning of terrorist attacks on U.S. installations world-wide at the time, only one soldier was detailed to guard the aircraft.
"Sometimes he was paying attention, other times he wasn't," Aviv said.
Certainly, his attention would have been diverted when, Aviv said, a fight broke out under the tail between Egyptian baggage handlers.
It's known that some of the soldiers they were returning to their home base at Fort Campbell, Ky., had reservations about the flight because of the terrorist threat. Wheaton said their commander wanted his men to travel with loaded sidearms as a precaution against attack, but the pilot demanded that all ammunition be stored on the flight deck. He also said the flight was kept away from Sinai after an unidentified U.S. "field-grade" officer, with the rank of major or above, said there was construction work being done at the airstrip there and that it was unsafe to land.
However: "I have not found anyone who saw construction work, and they could have created it to keep the plane away," Wheaton said.
Why?
Wheaton speculates it was because there was a U.S. customs presence in Sinai checking every flight destined for the United States.
There was no such team in Cairo, and when customs agents traveled there to check the Arrow Air flight, "the multi-national force refused them ramp passes" to check the plane. In that way, Wheaton claims, the arms destined illicitly for the contras were loaded in the coffin-size crates without inspection. (The arms, made in the United States, passed from U.S. accountability when they were signed over to the multi-national force.)
Retired Gen. Burton Patrick, former commanding officer of the 101st
and now city manager of Thomson, Ga., told The Sunday Star he hadn't
heard of the boxes until six weeks ago and has no idea what might
have been in them. He said he has asked the U.S. Army about them
since "and the only thing I got was that they were comfort packages
(paper cups, plates and napkins)." Official also have said, at
various times, that the boxes contained airplane parts and medical
records.
If the crates did contain live ammunition, he said, that was strictly
against military regulations that say personnel are not to be flown
an the same plane as "hot cargo." Commenting on reports 40 soldiers'
baggage had to be removed to make space for the boxes, Patrick said:
"It would be unusual procedure to separate a soldier from his
equipment, but I don't know anything about that."
Wheaton said it's puzzling why the U.S. Federal Bureau of
Investigation continues to deny it investigated the Gander crash
when there is evidence it did. Aides to Congressman Tallon are
wondering the same thing.
Wheaton said he has talked to Arrow Air personnel who were questioned
by FBI agents, wanting to now where shrapnel might be found if there
had been an explosion in a certain hold. They also wanted to know if
it would be possible for a stowaway to hide in the hold on a flight
from Cairo to Cologne, West Germany, where the ill-fated plane also
landed en route to Kentucky. Presumably, that was to discount the
possibility of someone carrying a bomb on to the plane.
Yet, when Capitol Hill officials asked the FBI for a copy of the
agency's Gander crash report, 215 pages of a 245-page report were
totally blacked out. "I've handed FBI reports for 30 years," Wheaton
said, "and I know they ran some active investigations on this."
Then there's the story of the three-star U.S. Army general who
arrived in Gander the day after the crash and allegedly wanted
the site bulldozed immediately to avoid "souvenir seekers," though
all the bodies hadn't yet been found and the area was cordoned off
by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Contacted by The Star, the named general denies that, although,
according to Wheaton, he resigned ten days after the investigator
told the U.S. judge advocate-general about the comment. The general
denies there was an connection in the timing of his resignation.
And then there are said to be those similarities between the Arrow
Air and Pan Am crashes.
Investigator Aviv who, through security contacts, uncovered the
presence of CIA agents on Pan Am's Flight 103, said there also
were seven such agents on the Arrow flight. In the case of Flight
103, it has been reported, a team of U.S. agents flew to the Scottish
crash site in a helicopter and recovered a briefcase from amid the
wreckage. It's not known what it contained.
Gander firefighter Maurice Geeing recalls he and his colleagues
also were briefed to look for a briefcase -which, too, was recovered.
"We want the truth about what brought that plane down," said a
grieving Missy Godsey of Newport News, Va., whose 34-year-old
master-sergeant brother, David, died at Gander. "There are so many
things that do not ring true. The U.S. government wants it dropped
because, I think, they were involved in it.
"There were people from a special operations group on board, the
160th Task Force, and my brother was in that. It's highly secretive
and I know they are trained to get hostages out. He told me that.
There's been a definite Canada-U.S. cover-up because our government's
been so quiet about it."
Wheaton, who claims to have copies of ship manifests and telex
messages showing the United States has been shipping arms to Iran
since 1982, said: "This case cannot be solved unless there is an
inquiry with judicial powers."
Dr. Charles Hutton, Newfoundland's chief forensic pathologist, was
asked about evidence of toxic gases found in the bodies of Gander
victims and for his opinion on whether the findings indicated a bomb
blast or a crash fire.
His comment: "It depends if you are on the defense or the prosecution."
(mof)
Pan Am Bomb Linked to Double-Dealing CIA Drug Plot
by John Picton (from the "The Toronto Star", 11/10/89)
WASHINGTON - An eight-man team of CIA agents was aboard Pan Am
Flight 103 last Dec. 21 after completing a hostage mission in Beirut,
The Sunday Star has learned.
According to a Pan Am report, the team had photographed the
secret location in Lebanon where U.S. hostages were being held.
The report, shown exclusively to The Star, was commissioned by
Pan Am after Flight 103 blew up over Lockerbie killing 259 people,
two of them Canadian.
The agents became outraged when they discovered another branch of
the CIA was involved in an illegal drugs and arms operation to get
the hostages released. The Beirut team was returning home without
permission -"which is against the rules"- to publicize the CIA
drugs operation.
"They (the team) had communicated back to Langley (CIA's Virginia
headquarters) the facts and names, and reported their film of the
hostage locations. CIA did nothing. No reply.
"The team was outraged, believing that its rescue and their lives
would be endangered by the double-dealing."
One of the leaders of the group was Maj. Charles McKee of the
U.S. Army, assigned temporarily to the CIA. The Sunday Star has
been told he phoned his mother last December to say he would be
home for Christmas. After his death, agents with the U.S. Federal
Bureau of Investigation visited McKee's mother to ask if her son
had left any packages with her. They also said that some of the
belongings in his luggage could not be returned and would be
destroyed in the national interest.
One man figures prominently in the report: 42-year-old Monzer
Al-Kassar, a well-connected Syrian who is married to the sister
of Syria's intelligence chief and is said to have had a long-term
romantic relationship with the niece of Syrian president Hafez Assad.
Al-Kassar holds two Brazilian passports, as well as a Syrian
diplomatic passport, and has a luxury apartment on Avenue Foch in
Paris for some of his romantic liaisons. He is said to share offices
with terrorist Abu Nidal in Libya, one at 2 Stawkis St. in Warsaw,
Poland, and another on Friedrichstrasse in East Berlin under the
cover name Zibado.
Al-Kassar entered the picture when the West German intelligence
agency BKA was tipped off about a drug-smuggling operation centered
on Frankfurt airport (where Pan Am's Flight 103 originated). There,
ordinary suitcases were checked in the normal way and passed
through to the baggage section.
Turkish baggage handlers, recruited at mosques in West Germany,
knew which bags to watch for and substituted them for identical
luggage containing drugs and other contraband. The passenger later
picked up the new bag at his destination. BKA shared this
intelligence with the CIA.
Says the report: "It is now known how this method passed through
arrival customs ... but this route and method worked steadily and
smoothly for a long time."
BKA shared this intelligence with the CIA, which had been aware
for some time that the East Bloc was using Frankfurt airport as
a shipping point (for unspecified "goods") to Moscow. The West
Germans even closed down other drug operations with a series of
raids and stepped-up police presence to channel more shipments
through Pan Am, where they could be observed more easily. The
report suggests the CIA unit involved -which it calls CIA-1-
was not part of the regular agency since it "has a control at
an unknown location in the Washington area."
Then, after a successful French arms-for-hostages deal, "CIA-1
(the CIA unit involved) investigated, then identified Al-Kassar
as a major player in the drug routes, and identified his
background and blood ties (to Syria's intelligence chief),"
the report says. So "(CIA-1) decided to try for the same deal
as the French to get back the American hostages."
Then, in one of a string of bombshells, the report states:
"BKA/CIA-1 approached Al-Kassar and offered to allow him to
continue his drug-smuggling routes, and especially into the
U.S., if he helped arrange release of the American hostages
via his well-placed contacts."
Then: "However, Al-Kassar helped CIA-1 in sending weapons
ostensibly to Iran through his buying connection, supposedly
to further the U.S. hostage release. He also helped in another
CIA-1 enterprise."
And another bombshell: "He offered or agreed to use his other
arms routes to purchase and trans-ship arms to the Nicaraguan
contras," even helping to finance some of the shipments."
Al-Kassar was under surveillance now and was seen meeting
a man at the Restaurant Ajami on Rue Lincoln in Paris.
The man he met was identified as Ahmed Jibril, head of the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command.
Jibril was under pressure from several sources to engineer a
terrorist strike against the United States. The sources, as
outlined in he report: the Iranian government, which wanted
revenge for the shooting down of one of its airliners in the
Persian Gulf by the USS Vincennes; Hezbollah, a fundamentalist
Islamic organization; and Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi, who
for years has been financing terrorist acts. But they wanted a
strike arranged in such a way as to give them cover for
"deniability."
Jibril was the man selected by the various Islamic factions
to make the strike. He had discovered Al-Kassar's safe-conduct
operation through Frankfurt and had decided to use it to plant
a bomb. As his accomplice, he selected a Turkish courier named
Khalid Jafar, who had no record as a terrorist.
Both men met a Libyan bomb maker known as "the Professor" in
Bonn, West Germany, on Dec. 13, 1988. They were joined by a
Syrian explosives expert traveling under the cover name Patel,
who shortly after left for Lisbon.
A man identified as Ali Racep, a Syrian living in Sofia,
Bulgaria, is said to have gathered the bomb components, which
included a barometric timer able to withstand the pressure of
two takeoffs, since Flight 103 was to land in London en route
to New York.
Al-Kassar provided the route by which the bomb was smuggled
into West Germany after the terrorists' own bomb-making enter
at Neuss had been raided by the BKA the previous month.
Al-Kassar's sister-in-law, traveling on a South Yemen diplomatic
passport, flew from Damascus, Syria, to Sofia last Nov. 13,
picked up the bomb components from Racep and flew with them
to Paris. Al-Kassar picked them up, rented a car from a firm
called Cahfic on Nov. 25 and took them to Frankfurt.
And he felt confident crossing the border since he had been
arrested by West German border guards twice before, but had
been released each time after a phone call. Originally; says
the report, Jibril had targeted American Airlines for the bombing.
But Israeli intelligence got wind of that and tipped off the CIA
and BKA.
Security was stepped up on U.S. carriers immediately - except
for Pan Am, where CIA-1's undercover surveillance was continuing.
Al-Kassar had not realized until now that Jibril was planning an
attack at or near Frankfurt. On or about Dec. 1S, three days
before the plane crash, Al-Kassar tipped off BKA through
intermediaries that a bomb was to be put on a Pan Am flight.
CIA-1 told Langley and a warning was sent to various U.S.
embassies - "but not, apparently, to Pan Am."
The report says: "CIA-1 thought that BKA surveillance would
pick up the action and that BKA would stop the act in case the
tip was correct." Ominously, the report says that CIA-1 had now
learned from Al-Kassar - and "had confirmed from its control" -
that McKee's team had discovered the drugs-for-hostages operation
and were investigating Al-Kassar.
Result: "By mid-December, the team became frustrated and angry
and made plans to return to the U.S. with their photos and
evidence to inform the government, and to publicize their findings
if the government covered up. "They did not seek permission to
return which is against the rules."
Although the return was "unannounced," McKee and his colleagues
were spotted by Al-Kassar's agents ("probably Syrian") when they
made their travel plans in Beirut, suggesting their timetable was
known.
Two or three days before the crash, a BKA agent warned his superiors
of a plot to bomb a Pan Am flight. But security still wasn't tightened.
And an agent of Israel's Mossad gave BKA the same tip less than 24
hours before the start of ill-fated Flight 103.
"BKA passed that to CIA-1 and asked for instructions. CIA-1 so
reported to its control. CIA-1 did not reply to BKA."
Within hours of the flight's departure, a black Mercedes parked
at Frankfurt airport. It was approached by a Turkish baggage
handler, who took a brown Samsonite suitcase from the trunk and
carried it into the employee locker area, the usual procedure
with drug shipments. A BKA surveillance agent watching Pan Am's
loading operation on Dec. 21 saw the bag being placed and noted
that it was different from the usual baggage being used for
smuggling. He called his office to say that "something was very
wrong."
The report: "BKA passed that information to CIA-l. It reported
to its control." Control replied: "Don't worry about it, don't
stop it, let it go."
"CIA-1 issued no instructions to BKA. BKA did nothing."
The report says the bomb that brought down the Boeing 747 was
made of the Czech plastic explosive Semtex and weighed about
1.25 pounds (half a kilogram). It was set with a sophisticated
detonator that was controlled by barometric pressure and was
designed to set and reset itself to evade a pressure technique
used in security checks.
Shortly after the crash, a CIA team landed a helicopter at a
farm near Lockerbie where much of the debris had landed. A
suitcase was recovered, apparently with the approval of British
intelligence and Scotland Yard. As for the shadowy CIA-1 group,
the report leaves its status or motivation unclear in the
overall context of the CIA.
However, in March, 1988, BKA ran surveillance on a secret meeting
in Vienna between a French government delegation led by Jean
Charles Marchiani, assistant to French interior minister Charles
Pasqua, and a group of Iranians. That information was passed to
CIA-1, which noted that Al-Kassar and a British dealer then
bought a quantity of arms from two British and one Polish firm
(all named in the report) which were trans-shipped to Iran. A
few days later, French hostages being held in Lebanon were released.
And after that, the CIA-1 operation with Al-Kassar got rolling.
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