"I Thought I Was in Hell"

By Ed Magnuson

A casino-bound jet crashes in New Orleans, killing 153

For three days, sporadic thunderstorms had provided only momentary relief from the 90DEG heat oppressing residents of New Orleans. As Pan American Pilot Kenneth McCullers taxied his 153-ft-long Boeing 727 into position for takeoff at New Orleans International Airport, a column of thunderclouds towered 35,000 ft. into the air. A drenching rain was punctuated by 20-m.p.h. gusts and streaks of lightning. Through the haze, McCullers could see only two miles ahead.

Shortly after 4 p.m., Captain McCullers rolled the 105-ton plane, freshly loaded to its capacity of 8,000 gals, of jet fuel, down Runway 10 to take off toward the east. Behind him in the 92-ft.-long cabin, 138 passengers were in their seats. Flight 759 was a weekend gamblers' special headed for Las Vegas. Only ten of the passengers, some of whom had boarded in Miami, were to go on to San Diego.

The luck of the casino-bound travelers ran out early, right after takeoff. The plane clipped a tree only 2,250 ft. beyond the runway and apparently never rose more than 150 ft. into the air. "It didn't seem to be able to get up," said Mike Scardino, who was driving nearby. Two miles east of the airport, Evelyn Pourciau looked up at the sky from her neighborhood of Kenner, a middle-class suburb of one-story brick houses. "I saw the belly of it," she said about the 727. "It was spitting and popping like it couldn't get the motor running." Watching in horror, other residents saw the 727's left wing tilt toward the ground. They thought the pilot was trying to bank to the north so he could avoid their homes and come down in Lake Pontchartrain, a short distance away.

Captain McCullers could not make it. His plane struck a power line, veered farther to the left. Spewing balls of fire into the air, it tore through four blocks of Kenner and exploded into bits of charred metal. Thirteen houses were leveled. The plane's nose smashed into one house, skidded through a vacant lot, caromed through two more blocks. The tail with its Pan Am insignia plowed to a stop in someone's yard; it was the only section of the plane still intact.

George Cusack ran out of his brick bungalow across the street from the plane's deadly path. "There was a wall of flame all across the street," he said. "I thought I was in hell." The flames were shooting 200 ft. into the gray sky. Gas tanks of burning cars erupted, adding to the din. "It was all rain and fire," said May Maggiore, a grandmother. "I ran up and down the street screaming."

For two hours a dozen ambulances waited for firemen to make entry safe. Lamented Volunteer Fireman Bob Bennett: "We train and train to help save lives. Then it happens, and we can't do anything but take the dead out." But Deputy Sheriff Gerald Hibbs saw something move in the rubble two hours after the crash. "Get a doctor!" he shouted. A baby started to cry. "What a sound it was," recalled Bennett. Wearing only diapers, 16-month-old Melissa Trahan was rushed to a hospital, suffering foot burns. "Just one ray of life in all this," said a policeman. "One tiny little baby."

All through the humid night rescue workers placed charred bodies and parts of bodies into black bags and lifted the bags into huge refrigerated trucks. Eight of the victims had been found amid their devastated houses. None of the passengers survived. Said Dr. Robert Muller, a police medical officer: "People were trapped in their seats. Children were clasping hands with adults."

Unofficially, the death toll had reached 153. It was the second worst U.S. air accident, exceeded only by the crash of an American Airlines DC-10 in Chicago three years ago, which killed 274. The search for the cause of the New Orleans disaster centered on the weather. Lightning, wind shear and "downburst," a phenomenon in which a huge column of air suddenly surges toward earth from thunderclouds at high velocity, were the prime suspects. --By Ed Magnuson. Reported by Sam Allis and B.J. Phillips/New Orleans

With reporting by Sam Allis, B.J. Phillips

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