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By ROBERT H. REID Associated Press Writer CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP)— I thought it was somebody dynamiting...it was loud, it was so loud...the screaming, yelling and crying, it was hysterical... The sounds of death for 69 persons, braced and buckled for a routine landing at Douglas Municipal Airport. Seconds later, dead in the wreckage of Eastern Air Lines Flight 212. One of the 13 who survived the crash, Deborah Sanders, 17, of the Bronx, N.Y., died Saturday of her injuries. Two others remained in critical condition with extensive burns. The DC9-30, with 82 per sons aboard, crashed Wednesday off N.C. 49 as it prepared to land. The flight originated in Charleston, S.C. and was bound for Chicago after the stop in Charlotte. Investigators from the Na tional Transportation Safety Board say they will spend an other week examining the wreckage. The engines were hauled away from the crash site Friday and carried to the airport, where they will be torn apart for clues. Federal investigators will not speculate on what may have caused the crash. However, NTSB spokesman Ed Slattery says a preliminary examination in dicated that the engines were operating normally at the time of the crash. A NTSB hearing will be held in Charlotte in about three or four weeks, he said. The team's final report will be made public about six months after the hearing, he added. A few residents of the crash site area thought the plane may have exploded or been on fire before impact. One resident of a nearby apartment house said the plane “looked like a ball of fire’’ when it passed over his building. Mrs. Thomas Cox, who lives a few hundred yards from the site, said the air craft “‘went three big booms when it went right over our house, I never heard it sound like that. But an FBI agent on the scene, who asked not to be identified, said searchers found no evidence of a bomb. An Eastern spokesman said he had no reason to suspect sabotage. The survivors also said they were unaware of any problems until the final seconds. “I looked out the window and saw a tree go by,” said a young sailor. “Everything felt normal,’ said stewardess Colette Watson. “I felt a real hard jolt and my first impression was that our gear had come down and that we were on the runway. “Then I looked up and saw flames,” Federal Aviation Adminis tration officials also in dicated that the flight appeared to be proceeding routinely. Eastern said the pilot, J. E. Reeves, was an experienced aviator who had flown into Charlotte several times. Reeves was killed. The copilot, James Daniels, sur vived and is listed in satisfac tory condition in a Charlotte hospital. Hospital officials would not permit him to be interviewed Saturday. Many passengers may have survived the crash, only to die as flames from ex ploding engine fuel engulfed the plane. Medical teams conducting autopsies said most of the victims burned to death. Rescuers told of hearing pitiful screams from those burning to death. “This girl was lying beside the fuse lage and had burns from head to toe,” said Jim Stanley. “She was screaming real loud and I got sick.” Among the charred bodies were those of a mother and a child, cradled in her arms. Near their bodies was a child’s book: ‘‘The Woods and Wild Things I Remember.” The survivors were either thrown from the aircraft, or were lucky enough to find an exit before smoke and fire filled the cabin. “There was a big flash of heat,” said Frances Mihalek of Charleston. ‘I started roll ing around, feeling the heat all the time I was being twisted around in my seat. Then I stopped rolling, un buckled my seatbelt and stepped out of the plane into a field.” A government safety ex pert said fire from exploding jet fuel is so intense that it will consume a cabin and the airplane's aluminum shell as well. “We're not at a state where you can design for that kind of condition,’” said Nelson Shapter of the Federal Aviation Admin istration. “What we are do ing as an agency is moving in the direction of minimizing the impact when fire exists,”” Shapter said those who managed to get out were lucky. Luck, both good and bad, played a part in the drama too. Pilot Reeves had not been scheduled for the flight, but traded with another pilot so he could be off with his family on his birthday. Two Charlotte men overslept in their Charleston motel and missed the flight.
Newspaper Details
High Point Enterprise
High Point, North Carolina, US
Sun, Sep 15, 1974
Page 78
Full Page
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USA 24 Jun 2026
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