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April 11, 2005
United Flight 232
I recently learned that the guy that does the play-by-play for the Denver Nuggets basketball team is a survivor from the United Flight 232 DC-10 plane crash in Sioux City, Iowa in 1989.
They were flying along at altitude on autopilot when the number two(center) engine in the tail section exploded violenting, destroying all hydraulics on the plane instantly, leaving the pilots with no flaps, ailerons, rudder control, brakes...nothing. A complete loss of all flight control except for the ability to change the amount of fuel entering the remaining two engines. Miraculously, they managed to get the plane to the airport and onto a runway, but, unable to control the flight once it was on the ground, the plane broke apart, burst into flames, and cartwheeled down the runway.
Not only did this guy walk away from a plane crash that killed 112 people without a scratch, but as he climbed from the inverted, burning fuselage, he heard a crying baby and went back in to retrieve the baby from an overhead bin where she had been thrown by the crash.
He wrote a book about the ordeal called Chosen To Live which I'm currently reading. Definitely one of those books that helps you keep things in persepctive.
You can read more about the crash here: http://www.airdisaster.com/eyewitness/ua232.shtml
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Posted by Peenie Wallie on April 11, 2005 at 02:56 PM
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