Gander Different Crash, Same Questions

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As he pored over the forensic evidence, Wheaton became convinced that the plane had suffered a precrash explosion -- and that there had been a U.S.-Canadian conspiracy to conceal the cause of the accident. "If the truth about this crash had gotten out in 1985," he says, "it would have exposed the Iran-contra scandal one year before it became public."

Wheaton knew many of the Iran-contra conspirators personally and had tracked ( their planes and pilots, making him a valuable source for congressional investigators trying to unravel the secret arms deals of Oliver North. Arrow Air, Wheaton instantly recognized, was a CIA-operated company.

To him, the evidence of a precrash explosion is overwhelming. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police obtained sworn statements from five witnesses who saw the DC-8 spewing flames before it fell. Judith Parsons, an airport rental-car agent, was warming up her automobiles out in the parking lot when she saw the sky light up. Suddenly "a large orange oval" appeared above the ground, she reported. "It just blew up and went everywhere, burning like cinders falling to the earth."

Rescue workers described charred bodies hanging from unscorched trees, indicating that some of the victims were already burned when they fell out of the sky. Autopsies also disclosed lethal doses of carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide in body tissues, proving that the fire and explosion occurred while the passengers were still breathing. I. Irving Pinkel, a former NASA expert who also investigated Apollo 1's fatal fire, found two fuselage holes with an "outward pucker," indicating an explosion from within. Finally, four members of the refueling crew swore there was no icing problem before the plane took off.

Although the U.S. government stated that no explosives were aboard, fire fighters heard small arms popping all over the place and saw debris flying into the air from delayed explosions. "There were 30 to 40 such explosions," the Gander fire chief reported. Later, live rocket rounds were found among the wreckage, as was an 80-lb. (32-kg) duffel bag stuffed with U.S. currency.

As Wheaton probed deeper, he discovered that six heavy crates, which he suspects contained contraband arms, had been loaded into the jet's cargo bay in Cairo without military customs clearance. To squeeze them onto the plane required removing some of the soldiers' duffel bags. Gerald De Porter, the former Army customs inspector there, who is now working as a pharmacist in Fayetteville, North Carolina, says, "I couldn't check the cargo because I wasn't issued a pass to go out on the tarmac."

Wheaton also located witnesses who confirmed that weapons, including tow antitank missiles, were being stockpiled in the Sinai. When he scrutinized Arrow Air's manifest, he discovered a mysterious Company E, consisting of 22 men who were not part of the 101st Airborne. All had the same MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) 11-H, indicating they were tow gunners.

"At that moment the U.S. was in the process of selling thousands of tows to Iran," says Wheaton. "Since it's unlikely that we'd sell such sophisticated weapons without providing instructors, Company E may have been part of the arms-for-hostages deal."