A crowd gathered at Gander Memorial Park in Hopkinsville Sunday afternoon to remember the 248 Fort Campbell soldiers and eight crew members who died when their plane crashed shortly after takeoff near Gander, Newfoundland on December 12, 1985.
Col. Ed Matthaidess is the commander of Fort Campbell’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team and remembered that those soldiers were on their way home from a successful peacekeeping mission in the Sinai Peninsula when they perished.
He says the crash 36 years ago had and continues to have an impact on Fort Campbell and surrounding communities.
Family members of some of those fallen soldiers were on hand to place a rose on the plaques at the park that bear their loved ones’ name.
Services were held earlier in the day on Fort Campbell and at Gander, Newfoundland.
Listen to entire service below: