Latest news with #Flight232
Daily Mirror
06-07-2025
- General
- Daily Mirror
Mum's selfless final act saved her two young sons in terrifying plane crash
A plane crash survivor reveals how he and his brother only lived to tell their tale of survival because of their mum's selfless final act to protect them An iconic photograph of a young three year old boy being carried to safety by a soldier will be forever etched in Spencer Bailey's memory. It's a picture that transports him back 36 years to July 19th, 1989 when United Airlines Flight 232 went down in Sioux City, Iowa, USA, killing 111 people including his mum. Spencer Bailey, 3, was one of the very few survivors of the plane crash along with his big brother and as he approaches 40, he has paid a visit to what remains of Runway 22 at the city airport. It was here where the plane first went down before sliding into a nearby cornfield. The asphalt is not really tended these days, with weeds growing through the cracks which is as it should be, Spencer, now a journalist and author, told People. "There's sort of a beautiful metaphor that quite literally reflects the sort of scars and the temporal nature of lingering trauma," he says. 'But also being able to grow past it.' 'My mom was 36, so this year marks the amount of time she spent on Earth,' he said. 'Obviously I carry my mom with me. I'm so grateful for those three years and 11 months we had together, but I have no memory of them.' Although he has no memory of that day, he's been able to piece together what happened through the subsequent investigation and via the media. On a flight from Denver to Chicago the titanium fan disk in the passenger jet's engine broke at 37,000 feet in the air, causing an explosion above the Iowa cornfields. As the spiraling debris sheared through the plane, cutting all of the hydraulic lines needed to steer the craft, Captain Al Haynes miraculously managed an emergency landing at Sioux Gateway Airport. It was the deadliest single-aircraft accident in the history of United Airlines. Of the 296 people on board, 184 lived including Spencer and his older brother, Brandon, who was just 6 at the time. Brandon later told him how their mum, Frances, put her arm around them as the aircraft's tail section ripped off — ejecting their bank of seats as the plane slid to a stop, upside-down. Brandon was severely injured and Spencer suffered brain trauma and went into a five-day coma. Frances "Francie" Lockwood Bailey, a wife, teacher, artist and children's clothing designer, died protecting her boys. 'There's a sense that she's always been looking over us. It's incredible for me to think [we] were the last thing she was holding onto,' Spencer says. 'I wonder, had she not put us down into the brace position, had she not put her arms over the backs of us, would either of us not be here?' Spencer Bailey is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the media company The Slowdown and host of the Time Sensitive podcast. He is also the editor-at-large of the book publisher Phaidon.
Daily Mirror
06-07-2025
- Daily Mirror
Airline expert reveals why you should never wear Birkenstocks on a plane
Christine Negroni has shared a top tip for nervous plane passengers when it comes to preparing to take a flight, to increase the chances of survival in an accident From having easy access to a plane's exits to knowing how to get into the brace position, air safety experts have many tips when it comes to surviving the unthinkable. Thankfully, the chances of dying in a plane crash are extremely remote, with experts estimating a person's odds as 1 in 11 million. The chances of dying by drowning in a bath, succumbing to food poisoning or being fatally struck by lightening are in fact much higher than losing your life in a plane crash - but nervy flyers might still want to prepare for the worst case scenario. Aviation safety expert Christine Negroni spoke to US morning show AM Northwest and one piece of her advice might seem surprising. "You see people either in Birkenstocks, love them but they're not good for an airplane. High heel shoes, they're not good for an airplane," she explained. "You want to be able to flee. Take a look at any airplane accident in which there are survivors and you're going to see a lot of stuff. You're going to see glass on the runway, ice on the runway, fuel on the runway and sometimes fire on the runway or on the pavement and that's where you need to run." Christine, who has authored book about plane crashes, cited a crash in Iowa in the United States that dates back to 1989 as one example. The United Airlines Flight 232 accident saw the plane crash after a catastrophic engine failure and loss of hydraulic flight controls. The pilots of the plane, which had been flying from Denver to Chicago, attempted an emergency landing at Sioux Gateway Airport when it skidded sideways and rolled onto its back. Of the 296 people on the flight, 184 survived. "The famous accident in Sioux City, Iowa, people had to run through a corn field," said the expert. "You're not going to be doing that in high heels or flip-flops. Sensible shoes - easy on, easy off, thick sole." Vishwashkumar Ramesh was recently the sole survivor of the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner crash, which saw the plane plunge from the sky shortly after taking off from the western Indian city of Ahmedabad for London. Vishwashkumar, 40, managed to get out of the wreckage through an opening in the fuselage. "For a moment, I felt like I was going to die too but when I opened my eyes and looked around, I realised I was alive," he said. "I still can't believe how I survived. I walked out of the rubble." The cause of the crash on June 12 has not yet been determined. A total of 241 of the people on board the plane perished in the tragedy and 19 people on the ground lost their lives too.
Yahoo
25-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
3-Year-Old Survived Infamous Plane Crash as Mom Shielded Him and Brother: 'We Were the Last Thing She Was Holding Onto'
They called it a "Miracle in the Cornfield," when United Airlines Flight 232 went down in Iowa in 1989, killing more than 100 people Spencer Bailey, 3, was one of the survivors along with his big brother and his rescue was captured in an iconic photograph In a rare interview, Bailey is looking back at the crash and its aftermath and his life nowSpencer Bailey, then not quite 4, was immortalized by a photo of a National Guardsman carrying his tiny, limp body away from the 1989 United Airlines Flight 232 crash in Sioux City, Iowa, that killed his young mother and 111 others. Now, as Bailey nears 40, he made time to return to what remains of Runway 22 at the city airport, where the plane first went down before sliding into a nearby cornfield. The asphalt is not really tended to these days, and weeds grow up through the cracks. That's as it should be, Bailey tells PEOPLE. 'There's sort of a beautiful metaphor that quite literally reflects the sort of scars and the temporal nature of lingering trauma,' he says. 'But also being able to grow past it.' Bailey thinks a lot about time. A journalist and author, who now lives in New York City, he co-founded media company The Slowdown and has a podcast called Time Sensitive. His 2020 book, In Memory Of: Designing Contemporary Memorials, examines different kinds of tributes, like the one in which he is featured: a statue based on the photo of his rescue, which was unveiled a few years after the crash. And this particular moment in time — this moment, right here — has special meaning for him. 'My mom was 36, so this year marks the amount of time she spent on Earth,' Bailey says. 'Obviously I carry my mom with me. I'm so grateful for those three years and 11 months we had together, but I have no memory of them.' Nor does Bailey remember the titanium fan disk in the passenger jet's engine breaking at 37,000 feet in the air, causing an explosion above the Iowa cornfields on a flight from Denver to Chicago. In the unfolding chaos, he didn't know that the spiraling debris sheared through the plane, cutting all of the hydraulic lines needed to steer the craft. And he was unaware of the 44-minute battle being waged in the cockpit as Captain Al Haynes and his crew struggled to make an emergency landing at Sioux Gateway Airport. Of the 296 people on board, 184 lived. Bailey's older brother, Brandon, who was 6, later told him how their mom, Frances, draped her arm around them as the aircraft's tail section ripped off — ejecting their bank of seats as the plane slid to a stop, upside-down. Brandon, legs broken, was severely injured. Spencer suffered brain trauma and went into a five-day coma. Frances "Francie" Lockwood Bailey, a wife, teacher, artist and children's clothing designer, died protecting her boys. 'There's a sense that she's always been looking over us. It's incredible for me to think [we] were the last thing she was holding onto,' Spencer says. 'I wonder, had she not put us down into the brace position, had she not put her arms over the backs of us, would either of us not be here?' Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Spencer's twin, Trent, and their dad, Brownell, were not on the flight. After learning of the crash, Brownell raced to get to his sons. He knew Brandon was at the hospital, and a relative told him about a photo they'd seen — that was already spreading in the news — that they believed was of Spencer. Spencer says the crash left 'our family broken,' with a single dad struggling to raise three boys after losing the love of his life. Brownell, 71, never remarried. He became his sons' primary caregiver until they all left for separate New England boarding schools. Though Spencer and Brandon were both survivors, it was Spencer who became linked, forever, to the tragedy. 'I never really saw myself in that image,' he says, remembering the day in 1994 when the family returned for a memorial in Sioux City and the statue was unveiled. 'It felt unworldly. It felt like something that was foisted upon me, a small form of celebrity I never asked for,' he says. Public interest in the crash spurred a 1992 TV movie, A Thousand Heroes — also known as Crash Landing: The Rescue of Flight 232, starring Charlton Heston — as well as documentaries and books, including Flight 232: A Story of Disaster and Survival by Laurence Gonzales, published in 2015. Spencer says he didn't participate in the Gonzales book but learned a great deal about what happened to him that day through the interviews. He discovered that a woman on the plane, Lynn Hartter, was the one who originally found his body in the wreckage. She handed him off to Lt. Col. Dennis Nielsen, who had been part of the National Guard unit training that day at the airport and was helping get the survivors to safety. "God saved the child. I just carried him," Nielsen later said of Spencer. Spencer's own memories of that time are largely incomplete. He remembers waking up in the hospital after the crash, but that's it. In that sense, he says, his conscious life started then — so he thinks of himself now as 36, not 40. All previous memories had been wiped away. Oddly enough, Spencer says he's never been afraid of flying, crediting the 'resilience of being a 4-year-old and having no memory of it,'' he says. But then last summer, when returning from a honeymoon in Japan with his wife, Emma, they experienced a horrific return flight. About 45 minutes after takeoff, passengers began feeling some light turbulence, which got to the point where the plane was consistently experiencing 10 to 15 foot drops in the sky — which lasted for three hours, Spencer says. 'This experience, even talking to you right now, I feel it in my body and it brought up some very, very deeply buried whatever [that] I experienced on July 19, 1989. I felt some semblance of it on this Delta flight back home,' Spencer says. 'Other passengers were screaming and crying and vomiting, and my wife and I managed to keep our cool. But when the plane landed in Minneapolis ... I was still shaking.' And in a Forrest Gump-like coincidence, Spencer had moved to N.Y.C. early in his media career and was working at Esquire on the 21st floor of the Hearst Tower when he saw another miracle landing, of Capt. Sully Sullenberger on the Hudson River. After his own plane crash experience, he says 'to experience from that vantage was very, very strange.' 'I feel these different markers of time allow me a moment to process and think. And anyone who goes through something like this — if you're not always processing it, you're fooling yourself," he says. 'I know I will be processing this for the rest of my life.' With time, his small family has gotten bigger. His dad is the grandfather of four: Spencer's brother Brandon, an entrepreneur, has two daughters and Trent, an artist, has a son and daughter. One of the grandkids nicknamed Brownell "Big Da." 'I think for him it's been so rewarding to watch us grow up and each of us build our individual lives, to be at our weddings, to be at our graduations, to celebrate those moments together,' Spencer says. 'It feels like my mom is still here in some sense," he adds. "Her legacy lives through my brothers and me in the ways that we see and the ways that we engage the world.' Recently married, Spencer has another summer memory he'll never forget: the beautiful day on July 18, 2023, when he asked Emma Bowen to be his wife. 'For so long, every time July 19 would come around, it was a well of emotion. And now, every time July 18 comes around, it's also a well of emotion — but it's the birth of this new life and this new love,' Spencer says. 'And there's something really poetic to me in the fact that these two dates now sit side by side.' Read the original article on People
Arab News
21-02-2025
- General
- Arab News
Survivors of past air disasters offer support after Toronto crash
CONCORD: Sad. Happy. Anguished. Guilty. Denise Lockie of Charlotte, North Carolina, has felt all of the above in recent weeks, as a string of major aviation accidents brought back memories of crash-landing in an icy river in New York. Sixteen years after the 'Miracle on the Hudson,' she and other aviation disaster survivors stand ready to support those who are just emerging from their ordeal in Toronto on Monday. 'Right now, they haven't even processed what has happened,' Lockie said of the 80 passengers and crew members who survived when Delta Air Lines flight 4819 crashed and flipped over at Pearson International Airport. There were no survivors when a commercial jetliner and an Army helicopter collided in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 29, a medical transportation plane crashed in Philadelphia on Jan. 31 and a plane carrying 10 people crashed in Alaska on Feb. 6. But in Toronto, not only did no one die, the last of the injured were released from the hospital Thursday. 'It's amazing,' said passenger Peter Carlson, who spoke at a conference less than 48 hours after the crash. Though he managed to crack a joke — 'Nothing beats a good road trip besides an airplane crash' — he later admitted struggling to leave his hotel room. 'I was quite emotional about this whole thing and just really want to be home,' said Carlson, the newest member of what retired flight attendant Sandy Purl calls a 'sad sorority and fraternity.' A history of survival Monday's crash in Toronto wasn't the first time lives were spared during a major aviation disaster there: In 2005, all 309 people on board Air France Flight 358 survived after it overran the runway and burst into flames. In 1989, 184 of the 296 people aboard United Airlines Flight 232 survived a crash in Sioux City, Iowa. And in 1977, Purl was one of 22 survivors when Southern Airways Flight 242 lost both engines in a hailstorm and crashed in New Hope, Georgia. Sixty-three people aboard the plane died, along with nine on the ground. 'Immediately you have a euphoria because you survived,' said Purl, now 72. 'But then you go into what's known as psychic numbing, which protects you from everything that's in your brain that you can't bring to the surface for a long time down the road, if ever.' For more than a year after the crash, Purl's strategy was to flee whenever anyone mentioned the disaster. Eventually she was admitted to a psychiatric hospital where she told the staff, 'I can't stop crying.' A kindly doctor took her hand and reassured her what she was feeling was real. 'For the first time, a year and a half later, people weren't saying, 'You look so good! Get on with your life, you're so lucky to be alive,'' she said. 'For the first time, someone gave me permission to feel and to cry and to feel safe.' Survivors stick together Both Purl and Lockie are members of the National Air Disaster Alliance, which was created in 1995 to support survivors and victims' families and advocate for safety improvements. In 2009, the group published an open letter to the 155 passengers and crew members of US Airways flight 1549 after Captain Chesley 'Sully' Sullenberger famously landed the plane in the Hudson River after a bird strike disabled both engines. 'We are grateful and thankful that all survived, but survivors need time to process and comprehend what it means to be an air crash survivor,' the group wrote, encouraging survivors to rest, retreat, rely on others and reserve their rights to privacy. Paying it forward, Lockie is offering similar advice to those aboard the Toronto flight. She described being in a fog for about eight weeks after her crash, struggling to keep up with her corporate job as her injuries healed and being beset by nightmares and panic attacks. 'Absolutely number one as far as I'm concerned is taking to somebody who can understand,' she said. 'I think Delta is a fantastic airline and I'm sure their care team is fantastic, but then again, how many people on those care teams have actually been involved in an aviation incident?' Friends and family might urge survivors to move on with their lives, she said, but 'it just doesn't work that way.' 'You might have fears that come out later on, and you really have to be able to deal with those,' she said. 'So my recommendation is to take all the help you can possibly take.' It doesn't take much to trigger memories While Lockie said her experience hasn't deterred her from flying often, it has shaped her behavior in other ways. When she enters a store or restaurant, for example, she always checks for the fastest way out. 'You have to be able to calm yourself if there's something that triggers your emotional aptitude,' she said. Purl, who returned to work as a flight attendant four years after the crash, said she can be triggered by the smell of gasoline or seeing news footage of other crashes. 'I look at the TV and I see my crash,' she said. 'I smell it. I taste it. I see the black smoke and I can't get through it. I feel the heat of the fire.' The Toronto survivors may find their experience exacerbates underlying traumas, she said. 'Like the layers of an onion, you pull one back and there's another layer underneath,' she said. Her advice: Live one day at a time, seek out people who offer unconditional love and talk, talk, talk. 'And then find a way to make a difference as a result,' she said.
Boston Globe
21-02-2025
- General
- Boston Globe
Survivors of past air disasters offer support after Toronto crash
There were no survivors when a commercial jetliner and an Army helicopter collided in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 29, a medical transportation plane crashed in Philadelphia on Jan. 31 and a plane carrying 10 people crashed in Alaska on Feb. 6. But in Toronto, not only did no one die, the last of the injured were released from the hospital Thursday. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 'It's amazing,' said passenger Peter Carlson, who spoke at a conference less than 48 hours after the crash. Though he managed to crack a joke — 'Nothing beats a good road trip besides an airplane crash' — he later admitted struggling to leave his hotel room. Advertisement 'I was quite emotional about this whole thing and just really want to be home,' said Carlson, the newest member of what retired flight attendant Sandy Purl calls a 'sad sorority and fraternity.' A history of survival Monday's crash in Toronto wasn't the first time lives were spared during a major aviation disaster there: In 2005, all 309 people on board Air France Flight 358 survived after it overran the runway and burst into flames. In 1989, 184 of the 296 people aboard United Airlines Flight 232 survived a crash in Sioux City, Iowa. And in 1977, Purl was one of 22 survivors when Southern Airways Flight 242 lost both engines in a hailstorm and crashed in New Hope, Georgia. Sixty-three people aboard the plane died, along with nine on the ground. 'Immediately you have a euphoria because you survived,' said Purl, now 72. 'But then you go into what's known as psychic numbing, which protects you from everything that's in your brain that you can't bring to the surface for a long time down the road, if ever.' Advertisement For more than a year after the crash, Purl's strategy was to flee whenever anyone mentioned the disaster. Eventually she was admitted to a psychiatric hospital where she told the staff, 'I can't stop crying.' A kindly doctor took her hand and reassured her what she was feeling was real. 'For the first time, a year and a half later, people weren't saying, 'You look so good! Get on with your life, you're so lucky to be alive,'' she said. 'For the first time, someone gave me permission to feel and to cry and to feel safe.' Survivors stick together Both Purl and Lockie are members of the National Air Disaster Alliance, which was created in 1995 to support survivors and victims' families and advocate for safety improvements. In 2009, the group published an open letter to the 155 passengers and crew members of US Airways flight 1549 after Captain Chesley 'Sully' Sullenberger famously landed the plane in the Hudson River after a bird strike disabled both engines. 'We are grateful and thankful that all survived, but survivors need time to process and comprehend what it means to be an air crash survivor,' the group wrote, encouraging survivors to rest, retreat, rely on others and reserve their rights to privacy. Paying it forward, Lockie is offering similar advice to those aboard the Toronto flight. She described being in a fog for about eight weeks after her crash, struggling to keep up with her corporate job as her injuries healed and being beset by nightmares and panic attacks. Advertisement 'Absolutely number one as far as I'm concerned is taking to somebody who can understand,' she said. 'I think Delta is a fantastic airline and I'm sure their care team is fantastic, but then again, how many people on those care teams have actually been involved in an aviation incident?' Friends and family might urge survivors to move on with their lives, she said, but 'it just doesn't work that way.' 'You might have fears that come out later on, and you really have to be able to deal with those,' she said. 'So my recommendation is to take all the help you can possibly take.' It doesn't take much to trigger memories While Lockie said her experience hasn't deterred her from flying often, it has shaped her behavior in other ways. When she enters a store or restaurant, for example, she always checks for the fastest way out. 'You have to be able to calm yourself if there's something that triggers your emotional aptitude,' she said. Purl, who returned to work as a flight attendant four years after the crash, said she can be triggered by the smell of gasoline or seeing news footage of other crashes. 'I look at the TV and I see my crash,' she said. 'I smell it. I taste it. I see the black smoke and I can't get through it. I feel the heat of the fire.' The Toronto survivors may find their experience exacerbates underlying traumas, she said. 'Like the layers of an onion, you pull one back and there's another layer underneath,' she said. Her advice: Live one day at a time, seek out people who offer unconditional love and talk, talk, talk. 'And then find a way to make a difference as a result,' she said. Advertisement
