The Colonel's Corner The Medusa File Part 14

auto-scroll word highlight ▶ Rumble @ here

Transcript

0:00 We're going to go ahead. I know we don't have everybody in here, but I've got to be done at about 445. So we're going to kind of skip around. I'm going to do a chapter 28 because it is shorter. And then I'll come back to chapter 27 tomorrow.

0:31 Where we, and just SR, just interrupt me when Bridget gets in. Sure. Where we left off was at the very end of chapter 26, where the author just asked a few questions about the 007 that we've all asked when we've talked about it before. Like, how does not both, how does both.

1:01 automatic navigational systems fail, as well as they actually have a manual one. And for some reason that doesn't work either. And why, as I said yesterday, why didn't RC 135 do something to help them? It was very obvious. And just so that you guys know, they have the electronic.

1:30 to know what everything in the airspace is doing. So they knew that these people were in trouble. And also he asked, how did this crew that was very experienced hour-wise in this aircraft get that far off course? All very weird.

2:05 And then, of course, the last question, what happened to the bodies? So moving on to Chapter 28, this is a crash that almost no one ever talks about. And this is the crash of Arrow Air 950 JW. Arrow Air, just for the audience who's not been with us as long, is a contract.

2:36 aircraft company that the CIA used a lot. So you just have to start the conversation off with that. The author starts off with 6.15 a.m. on December 12, 1985. Now, 1985 is a very interesting time because you have all kinds of crap going on.

3:08 Iran-Contra is going on. We're in Angola. There's all kinds of world turmoil going on. We're in the middle of the Afghanistan fake war for the opium. We're funding both the Iraqis and the Iranians. So lots of things going on in the mid-1980s.

3:38 Of course, you've got all of the stuff going on in the United States that we've talked about. The embezzlement, the money laundering through the savings and loan, all of the banks are failing, blah, blah, blah. All right. So still pitch black outside in Gander, Newfoundland. The winter months near the Arctic area caused the days to be very short. The nights are very long.

4:09 Two Canadian truck drivers, Cecil Mackey and Leonard Logren, they were pushing their big rigs along the Trans-Canadian Highway near the Gander Airport when they noticed something very odd happening in the dark night. Cecil Mackey recalled later that he watched a large plane flew very low overhead, apparently taking off from the Gander runway.

4:40 only a thousand feet away, and there was a flame on the bottom of the aircraft, which was so bright that it illuminated the inside of his cab. Mackey, giving a witness statement to Canadian authorities, explained that he definitely saw flames. Leonard Logren saw the airplane at a different angle at approximately the exact same time. He reported to be on

5:12 excuse me, to Doreen Hardy of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police that, quote, I think the right side of the aircraft was on fire. It was pitch black and I could see the tail and parts of the plane from the globe, unquote. A car rental agent named Judith Parsons watched from the parking lot at the airport as the plane, a four-engine DC-8,

5:43 belonging to a little-known American firm called Arrow Air, lifted from the runway, then disappeared into the night as it began to climb. A few seconds later, she saw a flash, followed by a large orange oval object moving through the sky, and then blew up. It just went into a million pieces. It was definitely not on the ground. A few seconds later, she said she witnessed a huge fireball.

6:12 erupt in the distance on the ground. What these people had witnessed would become one of the greatest aviation disasters of the decade and one of the least investigated, even more than Pan Am 103, which we're going to cover tomorrow. It had occurred almost exactly three years later. The tragic end of Arrow Air 950

6:41 would be swept under the political rug and buried in layers of bureaucracy. The fact that the investigation was a cover-up is uncontestable. For the reason of the crash that eventually was released to the public was that the airplane failed to go through de-icing procedures, took off with too much ice on the wings, and crashed because it was overweight and entered a fatal stall. Case closed. The problem is that the witnesses and evidence indicated otherwise.

7:11 What really happened? To understand the series of events that led up to the destruction of Aero Air DC-8, one must understand the international political environment at the time. America had lost its main political ally in the Persian Gulf, the Shah of Iran, and had gained a few fanatic enemies. In the person of Khomeini, Israel, Egypt were on the verge of a war. The American citizens had taken

7:39 were taken hostage in Lebanon by extremist terrorist organizations in an attempt to contain events in the Middle East, the Persian Gulf. Then President Reagan dispatched both military and CIA personnel to the region. Marines and CIA officers went to Beirut, where a show of force was supposed to intimidate the supposedly Iranian-backed terrorists with a force of soldiers from the 101st

8:08 1st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. They were dispatched to the Sinai Desert to participate in what had been designated a multi-force and observers, an MFO. The mission of the MFO was to support UN activities in the Egyptian Sinai as a buffer zone between Egyptians and Israelis.

8:37 Their job was to conduct reconnaissance patrols, man observation posts, along with international boundary enforcement, and to set up checkpoints. Though the mission was to have been peaceful, the 101st found itself targets on several occasions for hostile activities. The Marines in Beirut fared even worse at the hands of enemy forces and had been

9:06 victim to the truck bomb, which we've talked about ad nauseum, the fact that the Israelis knew that truck bomb was being built. They refused to disclose that information because they wanted to protect their informant. They just prefer to have almost 300 dead Marines as opposed to the one informant. And of course, he doesn't know that. He doesn't mention any of it in the book. He goes on to describe the fact that the attack happened, what details he does know.

9:43 And he says that it was followed. It had followed an earlier attack. OK, thank you. And he goes on to say that these terrorists also claim responsibility for a June 14th, 1985 hijacking of TWA airliner en route from Athens to Rome, kidnapping 54 year old William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Lebanon.

10:16 who, as we know from previous chapters, eventually dies. As these attacks continued, the terrorists announced that there would be more retaliations for Israel's incursions into South Lebanon and Americans' interference in the Middle East, not to mention the military and financial support for Israel. In communications, an anonymous caller boasted that these attacks would no longer occur only in the Middle East.

10:46 but would be aimed at every Zionist American or reactionary establishment in various parts of the world. He followed up that threat to say that future operations would be immediate, surprising, and lightning. It was under this cloud of international terrorist threats that the 101st Airborne Troopers of the MFO in the Sinai were withdrawn from peacekeeping duty.

11:16 For them, it was none too soon. They would be exchanging a foreign desert for Fort Campbell just in time for Christmas. But moving a large number of troops out of operational areas consists of more than simply boarding airplanes at airports, especially when they're scattered throughout an operational area. There was questions of equipment, personal baggage, staging troops, gears, blah, blah, blah. The air transport out of the desert was limited.

11:45 to a couple of small Egyptian Air 737s, which could not hold the troops with their luggage and the piles of unit equipment because this gear and baggage traveled by truck from the base camp in Cairo, where it caught up with the troops the next day. It was then loaded onto Aero's Air DC-8 that was stationed in Miami, Florida.

12:12 It was during this stage of the movement that unusual things were noted. Some customs officers from both Egypt and the U.S. searched all baggage, then sealed the containers on the trucks. The trucks left a full day earlier and spent the night at an airport in Cairo with only two American soldiers as guards. Then at 4 p.m. on December 11,

12:42 The truck drivers took over the guard detail so that the soldiers could prepare to depart. At about 8 p.m. that evening, American officers broke the seals on the trucks and gave the orders to load the baggage compartments. The loading was conducted not by American soldiers, but by local Egyptian company that had been contracted as baggage handlers at the airport. It was during this time that Aero Air Pilot Captain Arthur Chappold

13:11 Noted something odd. The Egyptian guard who was supposed to be supposed to guard the baggage and aircraft disappeared from his post several times, sometimes for as long as an hour. Then during one of the absences, the pilot witnessed a fistfight break out near a baggage hold between some of the quote unquote Egyptian loaders. This was highly unusual as Arabs never touch each other. And to most.

13:40 investigators it appeared to be a diversion then there was a period of time when the electricity was cut to the ramp and the lights went out leaving the area in total darkness the next unusual thing that occurred happened after the cargo holds were loaded still sitting on the ramp with the duffel bags of 41 soldiers personal gear that would not have been left behind under any normal circumstances but on the flight the bags had been

14:09 bumped because there were other cargo that joined the battalion's gear in the Sinai base camp and took precedent in Cairo, several large wooden crates that were the size of coffins. These mysterious boxes must have taken priority for the battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Marvin Jeffco, ordered that already loaded duffel bags

14:35 removed to make room for what he said was very important military material also odd is the fact that one of the 20 mysterious boxes had not been transported to the airport by truck with other gear but had been flown to Cairo in the hold of one of the 737s that brought the troops out of the desert no one knew exactly what was in the box

15:01 Even more mysterious is the fact that numerous investigators have attempted to discover the contents of the mysterious boxes, but there's no record or manifest that exists for any of them. After departing Cairo, the Aero Air Flight arrived at Cologne, Germany for refueling at 1.21 a.m. It was on the ground for almost two hours while the troops changed uniforms and the baggage holds were open and left unguarded.

15:31 At 3.20 a.m., it took off for the long leg across the Atlantic to Gander for the next refueling stop. The weather in Gander was typical for December. It was overcast, precipitation, and cold. The aircraft landed without incident. It refueled and taxied for the runway at 5.40 a.m. Gander time. Five minutes later, it was rotating for takeoff.

16:01 It dove on fire into a wooded area along the shore of Gander Lake. David Owen, a former Canadian bush pilot turned senior investigator for the Canadian Air Safety Board, along with the Department of Transportation pilot George DeWaar, arrived in Gander four hours after the crash. But before landing, they located the site and circled it to check the impact pattern and extent of ground damage from the air.

16:31 was they could not identify an aircraft crash as such, only a field of burning debris. Owens participated in the investigation was short-lived, but before he was replaced by other investigators, he managed to send out the first official memo that would become Canadians' worst aviation disaster. Flight 950, this is a quote, Flight 950 crashed shortly after departure.

17:02 no apparent survivors aircraft departed runway 22 disappeared below the line between tch and gander lake aircraft exploded on impact on impact near the edge of the lake unquote it was shortened to the point but it failed to take into account the observations of the witnesses concerning the airborne fire prior to the crash that would come later

17:29 but would still not figure into the final official version of the reports. By 3 p.m., the U.S. Army Major General named John Crosby arrived with a contingent of military personnel to assist the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and their safety investigators. Shortly after his arrival, several members of the NTSB and FBI arrived, but before they could,

17:58 entrenched themselves in the investigation, they were advised by the Canadian authorities they had no jurisdiction and that the investigation would be accomplished only by the Canadians. Though agitated, U.S. officials agreed to abide by the Canadian findings as they awaited the outcome from hotel rooms in Gander. Even though Americans were the victims, the airplane was an American airplane. The FBI remained strangely content just to wait it out.

18:26 One caveat did occur regarding the bodies. Any blood or toxicology tests conducted had to be performed in Canada and the results sent back to the U.S. The American government agreed to this and awaited transportation of any bodies to Dover. What happened next would be a matter of contention for years. General Crosby ordered the immediate bulldozing of the crash site. What the fuck?

18:56 No effort was made to reassemble the wreckage, which is standard procedure, nor preserve the site for future more detailed investigations. Instead, the crime scene was destroyed as soon as American officials gained possession of it. Crosby was in touch with Canadian officials in Gander regarding the cleanup, and according to witnesses, insisted that a representative of the Army be present at all times.

19:23 Instead of a detailed investigation of the wreckage conducted by attempting to reassemble the pieces of the aircraft and to determine if it was a mechanical malfunction or sabotage, which is standard operating procedure, the evidence was covered up. Colonel Robert McMeekin, director of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, received notification of their crash at 6.30 a.m. on December 12th.

19:51 He immediately began packing and by 3.30 that afternoon had arrived in Gander. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, under a memorandum of understanding between the two governments, permitted Colonel McMeekin access to the crash site for purposes of recovering the bodies of the victims for shipment to Dover. It was at Dover that the bodies would be examined, their fluids drawn, toxicology, blah, blah, blah.

20:21 After examinations, x-rays revealed that none of the bodies appeared to have any internal indication of pre-impact damage due to explosion, and that all had died as a result of a plane crash. The problem with the finding is that it is a blanket ruling that is not acceptable in a court of law. The cause of death is always determined on an individual basis.

20:47 such as broken neck, fractured cranium, blah, blah, blah. Then more problems arose when the toxicology reports came back from Canada. Dr. David Elcomb, director of the Canadian Aviation Safety Board, released findings that conflicted with the American ruling. According to Canadian tests on the blood of the victims, each had a high level of carbon monoxide poisoning.

21:16 Only by breathing smoke for an extended period of time, from two to five minutes, could such levels be reached. This indicates that the plane, which went down in less than a minute and burned for hours, obviously held live victims inside that were still alive until they were asphyxiated and burned to death. Another observation proves that the fire actually started in flight, filling the cabin with smoke before the plane impacted the ground.

21:46 Many of the victims' bodies held high levels of carbon monoxide that was found decapitated. This trauma could only have occurred upon impact, not in the air. Therefore, they had ingested the gas prior to impact, revealing the plane was on fire when it hit the ground. Not a de-icing issue. On June 20, 1986, Dr. Elcomb sent a memo to Dr. McMeekin.

22:17 Stating some of the carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide values are striking, and I look forward to meeting you to consider the significance. The outcome of such meeting, if one indeed held, has never been released. There had to be something else that worried the military and the government besides the onboard fire as the cause.

22:41 Simply trying to hide the fact that something went wrong while the airplane was airborne would not justify such an extreme measure of covering up and bulldozing the area in the middle of an investigation. Basically trying to hide the cause of death of 248 servicemen and women. The answer has to lie in the mission of the 3rd Battalion, 101st Airborne, and their mystery bases and add-on personnel.

23:12 It has been speculated by various investigators that the boxes loaded into the hold contain items ranging from Hawk missile system parts rejected by the Iranians during Oliver North Bill Casey's Iran-Contra dealings to dead members of a failed hostage rescue attempt by Delta forces. What is known is that 20 members of the elite task force

23:42 were also on board the flight. Task Force 160 was based at Fort Campbell, is the Army Special Forces Aviation Battalion tasked with support, not only Special Forces, but Delta Force and the CIA. Dubbed Night Stalkers, Task Force 160 has a huge budget that permits them to go virtually, to have any equipment they want.

24:13 Items ranging from night vision equipment to exotic weapons and just about every helicopter in the military inventory at their beck and call. Hauling paratroopers around the desert during U.N. operations are not what Task Force 160 would be deployed to accomplish. Their missions are much more serious and much more classified.

24:35 Paired up with Delta Force, Task Force 160 would be the air support unit that would participate in any hostage rescue attempt. For this mission, they would not only ship their helicopters and support equipment normally on C-5 aircraft, but they would box it up and take any specialized equipment, especially that that was completely classified in sealed containers that would be handled.

25:05 with priority bases, fitting the description of what the pilots saw happening there. They could also include weapons and explosives. Could it be that Task Force 160 and Delta Force were using the 101st base camp as a jumping off point for commando operations in the local area, or possibly simply linking up with them to return home after a secret mission?

25:33 Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North had been negotiating with Iranians for several months regarding assistance in convincing the terrorists to release the hostages in Lebanon. Most of this negotiations revolved around armed shipments to Iran consisting of tow anti-tank missiles along with others to include Hawk anti-aircraft missiles.

25:58 But when the Hawks arrived, the Iranian technicians determined that they were outdated models, not dependable, and were not up to engaging some of the latest generations of Russian jets supplied to the Iraqis. The Iranians were extremely upset, feeling that North had set them up. The Iranians, however, felt that they could teach the Americans a lesson. According to Islamic law, something had to be done in revenge for this crime.

26:28 North knew this and when told that the Islamic Jihad might condemn some or all of the hostages to death as a result, realizing this, did North plan a covert hostage rescue attempt? If so, it is possible that he knew exactly where the hostages were located. Or was he relying on the CIA special forces to do that for him? If a hostage rescue attempt was indeed happening but failed,

27:00 Did the boxes contain remains of those killed during the attempt? Would this make up for maximum losses? If this was the scenario, then the retribution for a rescue attempt committed on our withdrawing troops by planting a bomb among the baggage. It must be remembered the Pan Am 103 bomb managed to be put on the aircraft in Frankfurt. They took off.

27:30 flew to Heathrow, landed, changed planes, and then take off to become armed at a given time, passed a given altitude as the plane climbed for the skies over the Atlantic. A similar device could have accompanied on the same Arrow Air aircraft without having to change planes, simply by setting the timer. Had the Arrow Air flight been on time,

27:59 the airplane would have caught fire or exploded on its approach to Fort Campbell, sending a terrible message to the infidels of America. So what he doesn't mention in here is in part of the investigation, it was documented that Arrow Air was significantly behind their scheduled arrival at Fort Campbell.

28:27 So if it was a timed explosion, if you look at the original arrival time at Fort Campbell, it would have exploded just as it was arriving at Fort Campbell. That's all he includes in this chapter. But I think it's fair to say, and we've talked about this a long time ago, like three or four years ago when we first started researching some of these things.

28:56 It is fair to say that nothing about the Arrow Air flight was normal. Nothing. And none of the not normal things were ever addressed. So that definitely would be something we would want Pulte to declassify. So we've got about 15 minutes before I have to run to be on. Got Zimmerman and...

29:27 I'm going to be on his podcast at 5 o'clock East Coast time with Brian and Dwayne Cates. I told Scott when we were setting the thing up, I said it's like arguing with siblings when you're on the show with those two. But anyway, that'll be airing shortly after we close this one up. So, anybody have anything? I wondered about your evening dinner discussions.

30:04 It is very lively. I'll just say that. Very lively. You just have to make sure that if you want any, we normally go to Outback and they have those wonderful hot, dark bread loaves that they bring to the table. You have to make sure that you get to the bread first. That's all I'm going to say.

30:40 dramatically on both of their lives. Dwayne and his brother have dramatically improved in the last year or two. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. The one cheat they get every week is Wednesday night. Yeah. SR, go ahead. Thank you everybody for being here on Rumble and on Spaces and on YouTube. Isn't it amazing that we find all these planes that continually go down? For one reason or another. One just went...

31:20 down not too long ago. I forget what it was that I was looking at. It was somewhere overseas. Who was on that craft? I never said. Yes, I agree with you 100%. I don't trust them either. And they basically do their own everything about it. So if you have a plane crash and there's nothing nefarious going on,

32:10 There's very standard procedures. And the minute you deviate from those procedures, you know, there's a coverup. And I guess they think that people, that they can withstand a few months worth of questioning about their coverup. And then of course, and it bears out true that people just move on and that, but these families can't move on. They, they lost.

32:41 their loved ones. They don't ever move on. And I can't even imagine the heartbreak of a military family that loses someone and then through the grapevine find out that the commanding general is up there destroying the evidence of the potential killing of your family member.

33:09 I'm dumbfounded by it all, actually. It was an aircraft in India. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And exactly who they had on that aircraft was unknown. But supposedly it was a troop that had gone there for one reason or another to talk about India's war policies. Yeah.

33:48 So I just, Maker Sarge over on Rumble asked me for the link. I just posted both on Rumble and on X in the pit pill, the post of Scott Zimmerman that takes you to the announcement of the show. So for those of you who want to listen in. Okay, well.

34:18 If we don't have anything else, I realize this is short and sweet. We will cover Pan Am Flight 103 tomorrow. It's a little longer. I'm not sure we'll get it all done in one hour, but we will try. We have went over that in the past as well, so we'll see how it goes. But we've got a couple more in this part of the book.

34:48 that I definitely want to go over so that we've got them all on record. Okay. And like I said, the fact that this guy, you know, his whole background is investigations. And he definitely approaches things from the way a normal person would that has that type of experience in asking the questions.

35:20 and highlighting the inconsistencies of what is going on. So anyway, thanks for joining us, everybody. Hope to see you in a few minutes over on the Scott Zimmerman show. Take care, everybody.

Entities here

Newfoundland8 Arrow Air Flight 9507 Cairo5 101st Airborne Division5 Task Force 1575 Fort Campbell5 Oliver North4 Delta Force4 Arrow Air4 Royal Canadian Mounted Police3 Iran-Contra affair3 John Crosby3 Robert McMeekin3 David Elcomb2 David Owen2 Beirut2 Canadian Aviation Safety Board2 Leonard Logren2 Cecil Mackey2 William F. Buckley1 National Transportation Safety Board1 Judith Parsons1 Arthur Chappold1 Marvin Jeffco1 William Casey1 George DeWaar1

Claims made here

Cecil Mackey spied_on Arrow Air Flight 950 documented ▶ 4:09

“Two Canadian truck drivers, Cecil Mackey and Leonard Logren, they were pushing their big rigs along the Trans-Canadian Highway near the Gander Airport when they noticed something very odd happening in…”

Leonard Logren spied_on Arrow Air Flight 950 documented ▶ 4:40

“only a thousand feet away, and there was a flame on the bottom of the aircraft, which was so bright that it illuminated the inside of his cab. Mackey, giving a witness statement to Canadian authoritie…”

Judith Parsons spied_on Arrow Air Flight 950 documented ▶ 5:12

“excuse me, to Doreen Hardy of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police that, quote, I think the right side of the aircraft was on fire. It was pitch black and I could see the tail and parts of the plane from…”

Arthur Chappold spied_on Arrow Air Flight 950 documented ▶ 13:11

“Noted something odd. The Egyptian guard who was supposed to be supposed to guard the baggage and aircraft disappeared from his post several times, sometimes for as long as an hour. Then during one of …”

Marvin Jeffco ordered_assassination_of Arrow Air Flight 950 documented ▶ 14:09

“bumped because there were other cargo that joined the battalion's gear in the Sinai base camp and took precedent in Cairo, several large wooden crates that were the size of coffins. These mysterious b…”

John Crosby covered_up Arrow Air Flight 950 documented ▶ 18:56

“No effort was made to reassemble the wreckage, which is standard procedure, nor preserve the site for future more detailed investigations. Instead, the crime scene was destroyed as soon as American of…”

Robert McMeekin covered_up Arrow Air Flight 950 documented ▶ 19:23

“Instead of a detailed investigation of the wreckage conducted by attempting to reassemble the pieces of the aircraft and to determine if it was a mechanical malfunction or sabotage, which is standard …”

David Elcomb exposed Arrow Air Flight 950 documented ▶ 20:47

“such as broken neck, fractured cranium, blah, blah, blah. Then more problems arose when the toxicology reports came back from Canada. Dr. David Elcomb, director of the Canadian Aviation Safety Board, …”

Delta Force member_of Arrow Air Flight 950 speculative ▶ 23:12

“It has been speculated by various investigators that the boxes loaded into the hold contain items ranging from Hawk missile system parts rejected by the Iranians during Oliver North Bill Casey's Iran-…”

Task Force 157 member_of Arrow Air Flight 950 documented ▶ 23:42

“were also on board the flight. Task Force 160 was based at Fort Campbell, is the Army Special Forces Aviation Battalion tasked with support, not only Special Forces, but Delta Force and the CIA. Dubbe…”