Crash Survivors Tell of Horrors; Toll Rises to 27

Shaken survivors recounted the last terrible moments of Flight 1713 on Monday as federal investigators began trying to find out why the Continental jetliner crashed during a snowy takeoff from Denver’s Stapleton International Airport.

Another passenger died Monday, bringing the death toll to 27. A total of 55 people survived the crash Sunday afternoon, many of them walking away from the twisted debris with just scratches and bruises. Of the 27 still hospitalized, six were listed in critical condition.

“I thought I was going to die. It happened so slowly that I had the time to think it three times,” said Dr. Fred Helpenstell, a 56-year-old orthopedic surgeon from Nampa, Ida.

‘Hoped It Wouldn’t Hurt’

“I just hoped that it wouldn’t hurt too much.”

Helpenstell, who escaped with only a broken finger and chills, was trapped in the wreckage for more than two hours before “a man named Larry” was able to free him.

“I tried to think about other things--other trips, things in the past, my wife and family,” he said.

“Thanksgiving seemed an awfully good thing to think about.”

Airline officials confirmed that the DC-9 was briefly airborne before it veered off the slushy runway and slammed into a shallow gully.

The plane skidded through the freshly fallen snow for more than 1,500 feet, overturning and finally breaking into three major pieces, scattering baggage and debris in its icy wake.

“The whole fuselage twisted like a chicken whose neck was wrung,” said airport official Richard Boulware.

Jim Burnett, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board team investigating the crash, said that it could take months to determine what caused the accident.

He said that the plane’s two “black boxes” were both recovered in good condition and sent to Washington for analysis.

The boxes, one called a cockpit voice recorder and the other a flight data recorder, are expected to provide the NTSB with the conversations in the cockpit and data about the plane’s performance in the final seconds before the crash.

The NTSB investigative team, which arrived here Monday from Washington, will begin probing the wreckage today for further clues.

The board stressed that it was still too early to speculate on what caused the accident. However, investigators were reported to be focusing on a number of possible factors:

--The weather. Burnett said that while “rather atrocious” at the time, “that does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that weather caused it.”

--Icing. Excess ice on wings can cripple a takeoff in snowy weather, but Continental said the plane was sprayed with a hot (190-degree) mixture of alcohol and water about 20 minutes before takeoff.

--Fire. Some witnesses reported a brief fire on-board as the plane crashed, although the NTSB said that none of the victims suffered burns. While the wreckage was not charred, Burnett said he saw evidence of soot in the debris.

--Mechanical failure. Continental said the 21-year-old plane passed its last routine inspection Oct. 27 and had flown only 126 hours since then. The NTSB said it is still too early to tell whether there was any major system malfunction.

--Human error. Again, the NTSB said it is premature to speculate whether there was any error by the experienced cockpit crew.

Aviation officials said that the black boxes were expected to yield helpful data about the plane’s final moments.

Where there was tragedy, there were also miracles, and stories of tremendous luck and even greater courage.

Continental spokesman Bruce Hicks said the two surviving flight attendants from the five-member crew ignored their own injuries to help passengers in the aftermath of the disaster.

Flight attendant Kelly Engelhardt, 35, gave one passenger, pinned upside-down, her own coat to ward off the cold. “She was rubbing his hands to keep him as warm as possible,” Hicks said.

Engelhardt, of Denver, was released from the hospital Monday but asked not to be disturbed. The extent of her injuries was not known.

Dr. Jonathan Ritvo, director of psychiatric emergency services at Denver General Hospital, said he was impressed with the “human spirit that comes out at times like these . . . . “

“I talked with people who said that people next to them, even though they were pinned in, helped them with their free arm to get out. As they were crawling out, passengers unbuckled the seat belts to help those who couldn’t do it themselves. I heard that one young man, among the first out, went back in to help extricate people.”

Ritvo said the survivors he saw “were really bearing up heroically . . . . “

“The people I talked to thought they were incredibly lucky and fortunate. One survivor told me that what he saw on the news this morning--he had been in the tail section of the plane--must have been about a different plane. That’s one way of trying to get some distance from the situation . . . saying, ‘well, that couldn’t possibly be me . . . . ‘ “

The psychiatrist said many of the survivors had not yet felt the emotional impact of the event, but might eventually experience insomnia, nightmares, flashbacks and guilt.

Sometimes survivors feel guilty that they were not able to do anything to help other people in the situation, he said.

Two other survivors, Robert Linck, 60, of Green Pond, N. J., and Laura Hobbs, 20, of Eagle, Ida., also told dramatic stories on Monday.

Linck said a fireball erupted through the passenger compartment “about five seconds” after takeoff and the plane pitched wildly out of control.

“I can remember saying to the guy next to me, ‘We’ve had it,’ something like that,” Linck said, “and smack. I never passed out. There was total calm on the ship.”

Linck, who was leaving on a hunting trip to Idaho, said he was pinned for about an hour, and part of the time talked with a girl who was pinned beneath him.

The girl, he said, was concerned about getting enough air. He said he told her: “You’re talking fast enough, you’ve got to be getting oxygen.”

He said she was rescued first and he never learned her name.

Hobbs, an Idaho State University student returning from a Future Farmers of America Convention in Kansas City, said that when the plane crashed, she slid along the ground while strapped into the center of a three-section seat with two other people.

When the seat section stopped, she said, she unbuckled herself and stood. She recalled that a man on one side of her made a gurgling sound when he breathed and a woman on the other side was bleeding.

Hobbs was treated for cuts and bruises.

Airport officials said Flight 1713, which had arrived here from Wichita a short time earlier, stopped for de-icing before taxiing into position to take off for its final leg to Boise, Ida. (The airline had erroneously said Sunday that the flight had come from Oklahoma City.)

Both airport officials and survivors, including Helpenstell, said the twin-engine DC-9 appeared to accelerate down Runway 35-Left and lift off normally.

“I didn’t feel any slipping or sliding or buffeting down the runway,” Helpenstell said.

But a split-second later, he said, the plane began to tilt sharply to the right.

“The right wing dropped . . . and there was a thump--not a violent thing--and then it lurched to the left in the same way,” the Idaho surgeon said.

A few terrible moments later, the mangled remains of the plane came to rest in the snow.

After an eerie, stunned silence, the screams began.

“People were hurting,” Helpenstell said. “They began to pray, to cry with pain.

“I thought, ‘Oh my God, this is going to burn,’ ” Helpenstell said. “But somehow it didn’t.”

Helpenstell, who was returning from his father’s funeral, was wedged into a fetal position for “what seemed like an eternity” in temperatures that plunged below freezing. He said there was little conversation among the waiting survivors.

“I heard people say, ‘I’m sorry my foot’s in your face,’ and there were some words of encouragement like ‘Don’t worry, they’re coming,’ but mostly it was quiet,” Helpenstell said.

Continental said a memorial service for the victims was planned this afternoon at Denver University.

Times researcher Dallas Jamison contributed to this story.