I remember the dreadful, sickening feeling when we were about fifty feet above the runway and the aircraft’s tail dropped down more than I’d ever experienced during a takeoff, like when the Ferris Wheel stopped and you were tipped backwards, your feet swinging up to the level of your face and your stomach lurching in fright. The plane rolled to the left, throwing me up against the side of the cabin. Through the window of the 20 passenger commuter aircraft, I saw the small buildings along the runway disappear upwards as the plane continued to roll. The heavy curtain between the passengers and the crew was open and I saw the captain struggling with the plane, his arms shoving back and forth. The co-pilot was partly out of his seat, reaching for buttons and switches over the head of the captain. Then came the sound of the landing gear rising up into the body of the craft, reducing the plane's drag. When that didn’t help, the pilot cut the power and slammed the airplane back down on the snow covered runway. Pieces of the propellers went flying and we slid along on the snow nicely for about two seconds. I thought that in a few minutes we’d be sitting around a small bar back at the airport sipping free drinks and congratulating each other for surviving a plane crash. Just then we ran out of runway and the plane flew off the edge of a cliff that sits at the edge of the airport. We were moving pretty fast and I felt lift in the wings as we shot out into the air again. I looked out the window. God Damn! We were still pretty high and still flying, but now without power or control. The snowy field below looked soft and inviting, but I knew it would not be so. We never got a chance to make another belly landing. At thirty feet above the ground we crashed through the poles of the down range air navigation setup. The impact ripped off the wings and sent us plummeting downward. Flight 29 slammed into the earth and broke apart. I remember a moment of silence as I sat in shock and saw the fuselage broken open on one side of the cabin. I could see into the cockpit and it was a mass of blood. The copilot’s head somehow separated itself from the gore and turned toward me in a macabre slow motion as his mouth began to open. Then, WHUMP! The air exploded in a sheet of flame. All around me was fire, enveloping me, burning me. At that moment I realized this was the end. I was about to die. The dreaded moment was here. Still in my twenties with my life barely begun, I was being fried in this snowy field as if I was sitting in a backyard cooker. In minutes I’d be nothing but a grease stain in a blackened and burned out wreck sitting on a beautiful hillside of tender white snow. Along with the terror came an intense sadness as I admitted my life was over, a realization I would have never imagined would be part of my death. For some reason I saw myself as a little boy, maybe the son I never had. And I longed for him, yearned for him.
The flames subsided momentarily after the initial explosion gasoline vapors. The burning aviation fuel now spread quickly through the plane, shooting fire down the aisle like a roaring dragon. “Get Out! Get Out!” screamed in my head. I didn’t even try to save the old man. As I jumped up he reached out to me from his seat one row up and across the aisle. He couldn’t move and he didn’t realize he was simply belted in. It was only a few steps to the man and I could have quickly snapped off his belt and pulled him out after me. But the flames were all around us and everything in my being was shouting, “Get Out! Get Out!” I left him there, struggling. In my memory the scene rolls out like a video tape, and I believe I saw it that way as I lived through it. I watched, but was not in control. But it was not someone else who was responsible. You never know what you’ll do in a panic. I headed toward the back door of the plane. Something was in my way on the floor in the aisle. My feet marched right over the body of a woman, first stepping on her leg, then her stomach and then her face as she held her hand up to me for help. I did not stop. Oh, God, Oh God, I was so terrified. And it hurt so. My face and hands and ears, all burning. And then I was outside the plane. I was running, running, running. I slowed down to grab snow from the grass to rub on my face and hands. Running, falling, running up the hill. Gasping for breath, I dropped down next to a soldier in uniform as he lay on the ground. He was conscious.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” I screamed at him. “It’ll explode!”
He pointed to his leg. The pants were torn all the way up to his hip and the jagged end of a bone stuck out from the meat of his thigh.
“I can’t,” he said.
I looked away and sprang to my feet. I left him and kept running. Running. I wanted to see my parents again. I wanted to hug my little brother. I wanted to breathe deep and to savor food and drink. I wanted to watch a sunset and sit by the ocean and see a woman smile again. I wanted to see the son I didn’t have. I wanted to live!
On the steps of a farmhouse a bewildered looking man in with his coat sleeve torn off sat with his head in his hands. I ran past him and through the front door as a woman wearing an apron ran up to me and began to slap a wet dish towel at my shoulders and back.
“Sink,” I shouted, “I need a sink.”
She led me through a bedroom at the back of the house into a small bathroom and turned the cold water faucet on for me. I sat on the edge of the tub and let the cool water run over my hands. I tried to keep from crying, but God Damn! it hurt.
When the ambulances filled up, they threw the rest of us into airport limos. Next to me was the soldier and I was glad he had somehow made it off the hill, no thanks to me.
“Something’s burning!” I said.
“Your hair … your coat,” said the soldier.
But all I could feel were my hands, burned awful. With my hands wrapped in the wet dish towel from the farm house and my fingers barely working, I managed to get the window rolled down in the limo. As the driver sped us to a local emergency room, I stuck my hands out the window hoping the air rushing by would cool them and stop the awful pain.
No comments:
Post a Comment