Schaumburg Live Work & Play

At 3:45, Haynes told an air traffic controller, “Whatever you do, keep us away from the city.” The captain called for the senior flight attendant, and admitted to her he had almost no control of the airplane. They would divert to Sioux City, and the landing would be difficult, he warned. He admitted he had doubts about the outcome. The flight attendant passed the news on to the rest of the crew. Still, the crew remained calm and collected, Miller said. “Meantime, they’re picking up trays. There was a bit of tenseness, but I never, ever thought we were going to crash,” Miller said. The passengers learned they would be diverting to Sioux City, and Miller took out a flight guide listing departure and arrival cities, still trying to figure out how he could get home for the wake and funeral. Safety procedures were reviewed. Flight attendants reminded passengers to take off glasses and other sharp objects and brace their ankles. Young children with their own seats were given pillows as padding to tighten their adult-size seat belts. Parents were instructed to place the babies they held on their laps on the floor in front of them. The impact of the landing would cause passengers to jolt forward and likely crush a child on a lap, the flight attendants explained. Some mothers tried to hang on to their children, swaddled in airplane-issued blankets, as long as possible. As the plane plunged toward the Sioux City airport, the gravitational force felt like “being pushed off a cliff with a blindfold on,” Miller said. Two mothers couldn’t hold on to their babies. One of those babies would die. “I thought, ‘Wow, we’re crashing. And I remember saying out loud, ‘I’m going to be OK,’ but I remember thinking, ‘I’m going to blow up or be cut in half,’” Miller said. In the final 15 seconds before the crash, the plane dropped at a rate of 1,600 feet per minute. The right wing slammed into the runway first. The impact caused the plane to burst into flames, split into three main sections and tumble into the cornfield. Miller’s section of the severed plane held rows nine through 30 and flight attendant jump seats. It flipped three times before coming to a rest upside down. When Miller opened his eyes, he found himself still buckled into his seat – suspended from what was now the ceiling. “I was still very cognizant internally. I knew I was upside down. I knew I had survived. I knew I had to get out of there before I burned to death. I wasn’t panicky,” Miller remembered. He turned to his seatmate, the man who shared his son’s lunch, and calmly asked him to unbuckle his seat belt for him – like it was the most normal request in the world. The man obliged, and Miller cartwheeled out of his seat. The plane was nearly pitch-black, except for the raging fire. Miller remembers thick smoke, electrical wiring, metal debris and upturned, shredded seats. Someone pointed to a hole in the plane and told him to walk through it. He did - blinking at a shimmery blue sky and thick green cornstalks. The Aftermath In total, 112 passengers died from injuries sustained during and after the crash. Another 46 suffered serious injuries, and 125 suffered minor injuries. Miller was one of just 13 passengers completely unscathed. Of the 37 passengers who died of smoke inhalation, 35 were in Miller’s section. One was in 16D – three seats from Miller. “I walked off without a scratch, with no scars – physically, emotionally or mentally,” Miller said. “I’ve been able to package it up as a positive experience.” Miller knows, of course, that most people he speaks to won’t experience a plane crash. And he knows that some people – like the father who carried around a photo of his 16-year-old daughter who died in the crash, asking everyone at the one-year memorial service, ‘Did you see Parts of the DC-10 Jeff Miller retrieved one year after the plane crash. Page 22 schaumburg live • work • play

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Schaumburg Live Work & Play

Schaumber Live Work & Play Contents Hidden Treasures Slice of Life Handling Work Life Featured Business Surviving United Flight 232 Succulent Flavors Out & About Around Town Hot Spot! Dining Out

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.