GANDER, Newfoundland -- The pilot of a military charter that crashed while bringing 248 U.S. soldiers home for Christmas did not ask to have the plane de-iced before take-off, an official with an airport service company said today.
Canadian government officials in Ottawa, meanwhile, rejected claims by Middle East terrorist organizations to have planted a bomb on the plane before it left Egypt to return the servicemen home from a six-month peacekeeping mission in the Sinai peninsula.
Canadian investigators said earlier there was no evidence of sabotage despite a dramatic explosion when the plane crashed Thursday morning. Speculation about the cause of the crash has centered on weather factors and the safety record of Arrow Air of Miami, operators of the wrecked DC-8.
The Pentagon today revised its estimate of how many military personnel died in the crash, saying 248 rather than 250 soldiers were on board.
'After having receivedand verified documents, the Army has identified 248 soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division who were aboard the DC-8 that crashed in Gander, Newfoundland,' it said.
It remains the worst single charter plane crash in history and the worst such disaster involving U.S. military personnel.
Lloyd Granter, acting general manager of Allied Aviation Service Co., which provides costly de-icing services to aircraft at Gander International Airport, said today his firm normally de-ices aircraft only when the pilot asks for it.
In this case, 'it wasn't done,' he said, despite light freezing drizzle mixed with snow that had fallen about an hour and a quarter before the plane took off for Fort Campbell, Ky., home of the elite 101st Airborne Division.
Gander Airport Manager John Pitman earlier refused comment on reports the plane had not been de-iced during its refueling stop at Gander, about 900 miles northeast of Montreal. He said visibility was 12 miles at the time of the crash and the runway was not slippery.
Newspapers in Beirut, Lebanon, today reported a call late Thursday from an Arabic-speaking man claiming to represent Islamic Jihad who said the fundamentalist group planted a bomb aboard the plane in cooperation with members of the 'Arab Egypt Movement' -- an exiled Egyptian group.
'We have proved to President Reagan that we can carry out our threats,' the caller said.
A second anonymous caller told Italy's ANSA news agency the plane was sabotaged by 'the Organization for the Liberation of Egypt.' Police have no knowledge of the group.
Canada today rejected terrorists' claims and said there was no evidence of sabotage.
'A lot of groups will claim responsibility and every (claim) will be looked into,' said Helene Lafortune, a spokeswoman for the Department of External Affairs.
But she said she would expect such groups to claim responsibility no matter where the flight originated. 'They use that to promote their cause. I don't think it's a lead on anything,' she said.
Christiane Beaulieu, of the Canadian Aviation Safety Board, told a morning news conference in Gander investigators were taking Islamic Jihad's claim into consideration but would not comment further until the DC-8's flight data recorder and voice box were analyzed.
The devices, known as the plane's 'black box,' were recovered Thursday and sent to Canada's National Research Council in Ottawa for analysis.
Tom Hinton, director of investigations for the CASB, said the cockpit voice recorder, which records conversations between the pilot and the air traffic control tower, was broken in the crash.
'Our initial examination of the tape does not reveal any obvious information that will help us determine the cause of the crash,' Hinton said.
The flight data recorder, commonly referred to as the 'black box,' was of an older unsophisticated variety and was heavily damaged by fire, so it too may provide few clues, Hinton said.
Beaulieu said about 70 percent of the bodies of the 248 passengers and eight crew were recovered by late morning and they expected to recover the remainder by midafternoon.
Two Canadian doctors began autopsies in a makeshift morgue in an airport hanger. There was no immediate indication of their findings.
Beaulieu said no bodies would be shipped home until authorities decide how many autopsies are needed to provide a clue to the cause of the crash.
'We could perform autopsies on a certain percentage of the bodies or on all the bodies. That is a decision that still hasn't been taken.'
