‘God Opened a Hole’ After Jet Landed Upside Down

Survivors told of terror and heroism as their crippled DC-10 struggled Wednesday to reach an airport and then crashed and broke up while attempting an emergency landing.

“The plane came down. It bounced twice, flipped into the air and we were sitting there upside down and it began to fill up with smoke,” said Cliff Marshall of Columbus, Ohio, who was returning home from Denver.

“Then God opened a hole in the basement (the bottom of the plane) and I pushed a little girl out. I grabbed another, kept pulling them out until they didn’t come no more.”

Marshall said he thought he helped a half-dozen people out and then he ran.

There were a reported 289 passengers and crew members on the United Airlines flight, en route from Denver to Chicago, when it crashed while trying to land at the airport in this western Iowa city.

An unidentified survivor interviewed by KMNS radio in Sioux City said that about a half-hour before the crash “there was a big, loud noise that kind of shook the plane.”

“The pilot got on and said one of our engines had blown and quit. He said when it blew it hurt the tail of the plane and the pilots couldn’t control the plane,” the passenger said.

He said the plane circled for about a half-hour “while the pilots figured out what to do. Then they said we were preparing for a crash landing. They said it would be about 30 seconds, but it was about five minutes.

“When we hit, the plane broke right in front of me. It rolled over twice, I think, then it burst into flames,” he said. “I grabbed an old lady in front of me and a baby and I went out the plane. Then I looked back and there were flames and I ran into the cornfield.”

Crash survivor Melanie Cincala of Toledo, Ohio, said: “I think it (the plane) turned over a couple of times. I think it landed upside down. I can remember picking up a little baby . . . and carrying the baby out of the plane.”

She said there was a fire on the plane, and a fireball “flashed past us.” The plane burst into flames after she got off, she said.

Ron Rhode of Columbus said he was sitting with an 8-year-old boy, Ben Radtke of Prairie View, Ill.

“The plane hit, bounced and we ended upside down. I let him go,” Rhode said.

Rhode said he and another passenger, Danny Surue of Chicago, threw the boy from the plane and then got out themselves. Surue said: “The boy was sitting by himself, alone, and they said we were going to crash, so Ron got up and went over and sat by him.”

Radtke was not hurt, but said he was afraid he was going to die. The boy still wore his United Airlines badge.

Rod Vettor, who suffered bruises in the crash, said passengers braced for the landing after the pilot announced the emergency.

Vettor, who said he was in Row 20, said another survivor in Row 9 told him the plane split right in front of his seat.

“We ended up upside down in a cornfield with fire,” Vettor said. “We did everything we could to get people out of the airplane.”

Another survivor, Charlie Martz, told a broadcaster: “I just came over here to make a call and here I am talking to you. Thank the Lord or whoever you thank. I’ve never been through a plane crash in 35 years or 3,500 hours of flying my own, so I’m amazed.”