03/08/2024
The flight that shook my soul.
My windshield wipers could hardly keep up with the downpour 39 years ago this evening. The rain blurring my view was a welcomed relief after weeks of scorching temperatures here in North Texas. My speedometer was pushing 65 mph as the car splashed east on Airport Freeway toward Euless when suddenly a plume of dark smoke roiled up under the thunderstorm clouds gathered over the north end of DFW Airport.
My news instincts took over, I mashed the accelerator to the floor and raced into the south entrance of the airport. At that very moment, an ambulance pulled in front of me and I tucked in tight behind the flashing red lights as it broke through the toll gates heading north. Two DFW police cars joined the convoy seconds later, and as we approached the control tower at well over 100 miles per hour, I got a pit in my stomach as through the growing cloud of smoke I saw a Lockheed L-1011 jumbo jet on the ground, broken in half and burning.
The pilots of Delta Airlines flight 191 from Fort Lauderdale, Florida had attempted to land through the thunderstorm, slammed into the ground, and then crashed into the northside water tanks, breaking apart and bursting into flames. We later learned a microburst of wind from the storm cloud, called a wind shear, blew straight down at a velocity of 125 miles per hour, pushing the big plane to the ground.
I ran from my car, following the first EMTs and police officers into the crash site, and what I saw and smelled haunts me still today. Bodies and parts of bodies were strewn across the field mixed in with burning chunks of the plane and a flood of water and jet fuel. The smell of burning jet fuel and airplane parts mixed with the acrid odor of burning flesh is still so fresh, it seems like it happened just yesterday. For the next 3 days, I stayed right there, reporting on the recovery of bodies and the initial investigation of what caused the crash.
Only 27 people survived, 135 onboard, including the flight crew, were killed, as was a driver whose car was crushed on Highway 114 as Flight 191’s landing gear slammed to the ground. As I reported for months during the investigation that followed, my thoughts often drifted to the horror the passengers and flight crew experienced as the big plane went down. I can only imagine the memories and horrors of the first responders who rushed in looking for someone to save.
I flew quite a bit for NBC-5 back then, and it took a while for me to get comfortable again getting into our helicopter or even flying commercial. Witnessing death firsthand, on a scale this large and severe, never really fades from your memory. You can’t un-see or un-smell that kind of scene. The calamity that day changed me, for the first time I realized just how fragile life is and how, at any moment, we could be gone.
Media and Political Strategist, Storyteller, Television Journalist, Voice Actor, Problem Solver
