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This crash was studied fairly well back when I was on an ARFF crew. It's used as an example of how shock can make survivors act unpredictably after a crash. There were people who successfully evacuated the aircraft, only to attempt to go back inside the burning wreckage in order to retrieve their hand luggage.
IIRC there were two women with serious injuries who wandered away from the crash site and onto a neighboring road, hailed a taxi or other car, went back to the main airline terminal and calmly told the counter staff that their plane just crashed and they'd like to be booked on the next available flight to their destination...
I was on a flight where instruments indicated the front landing gear was down but not locked. E burned fuel, removed all objects from pockets and practiced the crash position.
The comments of passengers and reactions were all over the place. We landed in a foamed runway a good hour late and the instrument was wrong it was locked in place.
Most passengers rushed to the bar in a big gaggle and acted like they were bonded close like a family of strangers. I didn't make the group drinking scene it was late Wednesday night before thanksgiving and I headed home.
Reactions surprised me, as an refinery engineer with computer controls, I assumed it was instrument failure not a bad landing gear lock, I went through the drill but never felt like a close call to me.
I am surprised at how the pilot came in nose high and reversed thrust hard and felt like we stopped in such a short length so fast I could hardly believe it.
Those pilots and crew are really there for the unplanned just like refinery workers.
I remember this crash very well. I also did some research on it a few years back. I remember seeing the footage of the plane crash on the tv news when it aired in 1989. Originally, it looked like the plane had rolled over several times when it hit the runway. But, it was actually one of the wings that had rolled over after becoming separated from the plane. The plane itself rolled over only once. In my research, I found that many of the people who survived the impact later died from having inhaled smoke.
Some of the descriptions of the impact sounded horrific. I remember one of the survivors was once a guest on the Geraldo show, and she was asked "Were people screaming?" and she said "It was beyond screams."
Was there a pattern to where survivors were sitting in the plane?
No not really, because the plane broke apart into 2 or 3 pieces after impact and every section was affected. In first class almost everyone died or was severely injured. Middle-to-back section was where most of the smoke inhalation took place.
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