Читать книгу Air Disasters: Dramatic black box flight recordings - Malcolm MacPherson, Malcolm MacPherson - Страница 24

Then the awareness of being in the accident, that now I have survived, that I have to do something, came full force. It became very important for me to help anybody I could help, not only to help but to search, to find people, and I couldn’t wait for them to come to me. I had to go find somebody. I was completely disoriented as far as where the rest of the aeroplane was. At that point, the thought crossed my mind that we were the only ones who survived.

[The] fires were bad enough that I could feel the heat, so I knew that we had to get away or the people [who] were too injured to do anything [to escape] had to get away from [the heat]. It was—it was hot! A lot of fires were spotted around the area, a lot of small fires, and then I remember the smoke and feeling the flames and seeing the flames over quite a large area which turned out…to be by the tail cone, the back of the aeroplane. There was a lot of fire. [The nose section] broke off and came to a stop in the street just to the left of a house—in front of the house. I helped Shelly away into a grassy little area of yard and I was confident that she was safe at that point. But after helping Shelly…I had no aeroplane. There was just nothing there.

I [suddenly realized] that, ‘Oh, my God, this is a residential neighbourhood!’ Because I saw the houses. I saw the trees. I saw the street, the sidewalk, and I think I immediately thought, ‘What are we doing here? This is not right!’ Because I always thought, ‘Well, it’s reality that we might crash sometime’, but I never thought it would be into a house or into a residential neighbourhood. I mean, we were in somebody’s yard.