I SURVIVED: The Only Light Inside the Plane was Fire

Summary

Cold Case Files: "I SURVIVED: The Only Light Inside the Plane was Fire"

Released on February 8, 2025, Cold Case Files delves deep into harrowing survival stories that defy the odds. In this gripping episode titled "I SURVIVED: The Only Light Inside the Plane was Fire," host Paula Barros brings to light two intense narratives of survival—the catastrophic crash of United Airlines Flight 232 and the brutal assault endured by 16-year-old Ebony. This comprehensive summary captures the essence of these stories, highlighting key moments, personal insights, and the profound impact on the survivors.

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1. United Airlines Flight 232: A Miracle of Survival

July 1989 in Denver, Colorado, marked a day of unimaginable chaos aboard United Airlines Flight 232. Captain Al Haines, with 33 years of piloting experience, led a flight that would become one of aviation's most studied disasters.

Boarding the Flight:

• Jerry Schemmel, a passenger stranded due to a canceled flight, recounts, “[02:06] I’ve been waiting for six hours to get on the plane... I just felt relieved more than anything to get that last ticket.”
• Jan Brown Lohr, the chief flight attendant, trusted in Captain Haines’ capabilities, stating, “[02:42] It was just like, it'll be a good trip.”

The Catastrophe: At approximately 37,000 feet, without warning, the plane experienced a devastating explosion. Narrator explains, “A component in the tail engine had broken apart due to a manufacturing fault. The resulting shrapnel caused the engine to explode” [03:58].

Pilot’s Dilemma: With all hydraulic controls destroyed, Captain Haines faced an unprecedented challenge:

• “[04:49] When you have no hydraulics, the only way you can steer the airplane is by power... our biggest problem was how do we do that and also control the altitude.”
• Employing a series of right-hand circles, Haines and his crew attempted to stabilize the aircraft, a maneuver described by Jerry Schemmel as, “[05:57] We just kept going around in circles. I thought that was very strange.”

Preparing for Impact: As desperation set in, Jan Brown Lohr spearheaded the cabin's emergency response:

• “[08:24] And all I remember is distinctly thinking, we're at 37,000ft and I think the possibility is that we could go straight down. It was pure terror.”
• Jerry Schemmel highlights the crew's resilience, “[09:23] Jan and the cabin crew began preparing the passengers for an emergency landing.”

The Crash: The ill-fated landing at Sioux City Airport saw the aircraft split into five pieces, igniting fires and engulfing the cabin in darkness:

• Al Haines describes the impact, “[13:20] It was way too hard.”
• Survivors like Jerry Schemmel and Jan Brown Lohr recount the immediate aftermath, grappling with smoke, fire, and debris.

Aftermath and Reflection: Survivors faced not only physical injuries but profound emotional trauma:

• Al Haines struggled with survivor guilt, “[28:56] One of the biggest problems with an accident like this is... why was I allowed to survive when so many people.”
• Jan Brown Lohr transformed her trauma into advocacy, lobbying for improved child safety on planes.

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2. Ebony’s Ordeal: A Tale of Terror and Triumph

July 1999 in Alexandria, Virginia, 16-year-old Ebony was returning home after a night of roller skating when her life took a horrifying turn.

The Attack: While walking alone, Ebony was accosted by two men. Initially, she tried to dismiss the harasser, but the situation escalated:

• Ebony recounts, “[32:44] That was when I had enough of him and I wanted him to go because I didn't want him to know where I lived.”

The Assault: Dragged into a stairwell, Ebony faced unspeakable violence:

• “[33:49] From the point where they grabbed me... I knew I couldn't hold on forever.”
• Despite severe trauma, Ebony found the strength to fight back, leveraging her survival instincts: “[40:54] I figured, rape is not about sex... I survived because I didn't hold.”

Escape and Aftermath: In a moment of sheer adrenaline, Ebony seized an opportunity to flee, escaping her attackers and seeking help:

• “[22:33] One of them was looking for the condom, and the other was the lookout... that's when I saw my opportunity to leave.”
• Her bravery led to the arrest of one assailant, while the other remains at large: “Police are still looking for Wilton Yovani Argueda...”

Emotional Resilience: Ebony’s journey didn't end with her escape. She grappled with the psychological scars of her assault:

• “[42:12] I figured... I survive because I didn't hold. I wanted to live to see a hundred...”

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3. Reflections and Insights

This episode of Cold Case Files not only narrates the harrowing events but also delves into the profound psychological impacts on the survivors. Both Flight 232 passengers and Ebony exemplify extraordinary resilience in the face of life-threatening adversity. Their stories underscore the human spirit's capacity to endure, survive, and advocate for change even after unimaginable trauma.

Notable Quotes:

• “[29:14] Jerry Schemmel: The post-trauma stress was tougher than the crash itself...”
• “[25:04] Al Haines: People ask me why I survived. I have no idea. I was just one of the fortunate ones.”

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Conclusion

"I SURVIVED: The Only Light Inside the Plane was Fire" is a testament to human resilience and the will to survive against all odds. Through detailed recounting of Flight 232’s crash and Ebony’s assault, Cold Case Files brings to light the untold stories of survival, the aftermath of trauma, and the enduring strength of the human spirit. Paula Barros masterfully weaves these narratives, offering listeners a poignant exploration of courage, loss, and the path to healing.

Transcript

[Narrator]

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[Jerry Schemmel]

It was chaos. Bodies being thrown about, some still strapped in their chairs, others thrown from their chairs. Smoke. Fire.

[Narrator]

Real people.

[Ebony]

He bit me and I lost feeling in my left side of my face. And it was like I was some piece of meat that they had gnawed.

[Narrator]

On who faced death.

[Jan Brown Lohr]

We're at 37,000ft and I think the possibility is that we could go straight down. It was pure terror. It was pure terror.

[Narrator]

And live to tell how.

[Al Haines]

We had no flight controls at all. They were all absolutely useless. It's something that can't happen. So it's something we didn't practice or train for. And the first thing is, how do we keep this thing in the sky?

[Narrator]

This is I survived foreign It's July 1989 in Denver, Colorado. Jerry Schemmel is stranded in Denver Airport after his flight to Chicago was canceled. He is eventually told that he has been given a seat on UA flight 232.

[Jerry Schemmel]

I've been waiting for six hours to get on the plane and immediately after they handed me my ticket, they said, we have no more seats available. We need everyone to get on the plane because they're running late. So I just felt relieved more than anything to get that last ticket.

[Narrator]

Al Haines was the Captain of Flight 232 and had been a pilot for 33 years.

[Al Haines]

Beautiful day. I think it was cloudless day all the way to Chicago. We had taken off about an hour into the flight, had 296. What they call souls on board. There were 811 crew members and the rest were passengers.

[Narrator]

Jan Brown Lohr was the chief flight attendant.

[Jan Brown Lohr]

Al came back into the galley to brief with me and I remember thinking, oh, I've flown with him before. He's really, you know, he's really a good captain. It was just like, it'll be a good trip.

[Narrator]

There were 285 passengers on board the flight that day.

[Jerry Schemmel]

And the captain told us there would be very little turbulence, if any. So I expected a smooth two hour ride to Chicago.

[Al Haines]

We were being vectored by Minneapolis to get behind traffic going to Chicago. They turned us back to, to head to Mason City. And right after we leveled out from the turn, there's this loud explosion followed by vibration. And I thought a bomb had gone off. It was that loud.

[Jerry Schemmel]

And then you could feel the reverberation from it as well. He could feel the shaking and shuddering, the vibrating inside the cabin for a good five or six seconds. And then we started to go into a drop, not a free fall drop. You could feel the plane start to go down, ease down. And the thought hit me that a terrorist has planted a bomb. It's been detonated and that's it for everybody. People don't survive bombs going off in planes. We're going to hit the ground sometime very soon and we'll all be gone.

[Narrator]

At that point, a component in the tail engine had broken apart due to a manufacturing fault. The resulting shrapnel caused the engine to explode.

[Al Haines]

About that time, Dudley, our second officer, called my attention to his hydraulic panel. And we'd lost all the hydraulics, which is something that cannot happen. We had no flight controls at all. They were all absolutely useless. And that didn't make any sense to us. It's something that can't happen. So it's something we didn't practice or train for. And the first thing is, how do we keep this thing in the sky?

[Narrator]

The explosion had caused the aircraft to descend rapidly.

[Jerry Schemmel]

I mean, it was really, really complete panic inside the cabin. I heard a lot of screaming. There were plates and dishes and silverware being kind of tossed about because of our drop. And people who were on their feet, including flight attendants, were kind of thrown from their feet a little bit. Didn't hit the, but kind of lost balance. So it was the start of a lot of chaos at that point.

[Narrator]

Shrapnel from the explosion cut the hydraulic systems, crippling the flight controls.

[Al Haines]

When you have no hydraulics, the only way you can steer the airplane is by power. Now, if you have anything that has an engine on each side, like a boat or a plane or something like that. You have to keep your two power outputs together to go straight. That we know if you put more power on one side, you can skid the airplane one way. Our biggest problem was how do we do that and also control the altitude. If you suddenly throw the throttles forward, it's like a quick step on the accelerator pitches you back in your seat. Well, that pitches the nose of the airplane up. And as the airplane starts up, if you close both throttles, that's like stepping on the brakes. It pushes the nose down. But our problem was the airplane wanted to turn right and roll over.

[Narrator]

Using the throttles, the pilots managed to gain some control of the aircraft.

[Al Haines]

We're making a series of circles to the right because the airplane would turn, start to the right. So if we drifted off our heading, we just do a 360 degree turn and catch the heading on the way back with the throttles and then fly that heading for a while until it starts to roll again. I think we made four or five complete right hand circles.

[Jerry Schemmel]

I did feel it's taking a right turn, which I thought was very unusual. You take a right turn to get on a heading and then you stay on that heading. We just kept going around in circles. I thought that was very strange.

[Al Haines]

And while all this is going on, our second officer is calling our maintenance base in San Francisco for information on what to do. They didn't know what to do either. And they actually called our crisis center. They didn't know what to do. They called McDonnell Douglas, a manufacturer. They didn't know what to do. They called General Electric, the manufacturer. They didn't know what to do. So we're all kind of on our own up there.

[Jan Brown Lohr]

I could feel that all eyes are on the flight attendants when something happens to see how we're reacting. So the passengers know how to react. And I just always had a very poker face in situations like that. Like there's absolutely nothing wrong because the priority is to maintain calm with the passengers. And then I just went back to picking up trays as if nothing had happened.

[Al Haines]

As soon as we could, we called our senior flight attendant up to the cockpit and told her what was going on.

[Jan Brown Lohr]

So I did a very casual walk up and knocked on the door like everything we're supposed to do. And when the door opened, I just, as I was walking up, I was telling myself, well, we have an emergency here. But when I opened the door, it just, to this day, it makes my skin crawl because it was like I just thought to myself, oh my gosh, this isn't an emergency. It's the worst possible crisis. And it was nothing unusual. There was no erratic movements or a hectic sense. It was just what was hanging in the air, that it was the worst possible crisis. I just, I could feel it. It just hit me force when I opened that door. The only thing that stood out outside of what was hanging in the air that was so palpable was that both Al and Bill, the co pilot were in the same position gripping the yoke. And to just sense the strength that was what hit me so strongly is they were both in that position and the strength that they were putting into that to try to control the plane.

[Narrator]

Jan was told by the captain to prepare the passengers for a crash landing.

[Jan Brown Lohr]

And all I remember is distinctly thinking, we're at 37,000ft and I think the possibility is that we could go straight down. It was pure terror. It was pure terror.

[Narrator]

Jan left the cockpit to brief the cabin crew.

[Jan Brown Lohr]

I said, we are going to be as a crew, we are going to be calm and these passengers are going to be calm. I just absolutely will not even consider that we're going to lose control of this situation, whatever it takes.

[Jerry Schemmel]

It was probably a good three or four minutes after the explosion and us going into a drop and coming out of a drop that we got our first exchange in the cockpit. And that came from Captain Al Haynes. And he told us it was not a bomb, it was an engine exploding. And I'm having a lot of trouble controlling the plane. He said, I'm not gonna kidding anybody, this is gonna be bad. You need to be ready for a crash landing.

[Narrator]

Jan and the cabin crew began preparing the passengers for an emergency landing.

[Jan Brown Lohr]

I think after we had briefed the passengers, demonstrating, checking seat belts, checking brace positions, that I stopped to think, had I was there anything I had missed? I realized that we had several lap children. I think we had four lap children under two sitting on their parents lap.

[Narrator]

The airline did not provide seat belts for children less than two years of age. Jan followed the airline's protocol and told parents to place the children on the floor.

[Jan Brown Lohr]

I just said that they should place them on the floor and hold them. And when I was saying that, I thought this has got to be the most ludicrous, insane thing I have ever said in my life. I mean it sounds great in a classroom experience, but in a real life experience, I thought, I am telling parents to put their most prized treasured possession on the floor. And it's Sort of like, well, let's hope for the best. It was absurd. I just thought, I cannot believe I am saying this, but that's what I had.

[Narrator]

The flight crew had decided to make an emergency landing at Sioux City Airport.

[Al Haines]

We went to Sioux City because that's where the airplane went. We didn't have enough control of the airplane to put it down any place in particular. We just had to keep going until it got to the ground. And the idea was to keep it in the air, hoping we could make the airport, because there's facilities there, there's emergency vehicles there, there's hospital people there. If we could make the airport, that's what we wanted to do.

[Narrator]

The aircraft had begun its descent and was only minutes from attempting to land.

[Al Haines]

The controller told us we were clear to land on any Runway. And for some reason, and I don't know why I don't remember saying it, I laughed and said, do you want to be particular and make it a Runway? I said, it kind of struck me as funny. We'll take Iowa. Just anywhere in Iowa, get us down. You know, when you say, you know, your life flashes before your eyes and all. We never thought we were gonna die. We didn't think we're gonna crash. We thought, you know, if we can just get this thing to the ground and keep it flying, we'll be okay. And as long as it was flying, there was no panic. If we had rolled over and started that nosedive, then maybe we would have panicked, but we're so busy, you don't have time to think about anything else.

[Jan Brown Lohr]

I never thought about my family at all. It's just the job is just all consuming it and the responsibility. It's probably one of the loneliest times of my life.

[Jerry Schemmel]

I call it a controlled panic. You could hear people crying. You could hear some people sort of crying out loudly, but for the most part, people kept calm. I think we were all trying to figure out how we're going to survive this thing.

[Narrator]

Only moments from landing, Jan was waiting for the brace signal from the cockpit. This required passengers to lower their heads and clasp their ankles.

[Jan Brown Lohr]

I was thinking, we have a chance of making it. And then when they said brace from the cockpit over the PA and we all started yelling, brace. And it was like a wind blowing over the prairie, and just everybody disappeared from sight.

[Jerry Schemmel]

When we got the command to brace, which was about 30 seconds before we hit, everybody went in that position. And the only thing that I could hear were some kids either laughing or talking or crying. Otherwise, it was pretty still. There was Nothing we could do now to get ourselves more ready for a crash landing. We put ourselves in the mercy landing position, and we just had to react to what was going to happen. At that point, I just felt like it was my time to go. And I guess the thought that people don't survive plane crashes kept coming into my head. And I thought, get that thought out of your head, because you may survive this thing. And if you're. If you're dead or hurt seriously, you can't do much. But if you're not, don't panic, don't flee the plane, help other people.

[Al Haines]

About 300ft, the nose started down again, and we started to go too fast. The only thing is, it was only four seconds before we hit the ground. We were going twice the speed, almost twice the speed we should have been, and probably eight or ten times the rate of descent that we should have had. And it just hit way too hard.

[Jan Brown Lohr]

We just smashed into the earth. It was just incredible. I couldn't believe we could hit that hard and still have all of our parts connected. It was just unbelievable. Just. And even smashing into the earth doesn't adequately describe how hard we hit.

[Jerry Schemmel]

The noise is incredible. It's louder than anything that I've ever heard in my life. I tell people times 10, when we hit the ground, that sound of steel on steel, that meshing of steel, it just reverberated through the cabin. And I wasn't ready for the impact. I wasn't ready for the sound either.

[Jan Brown Lohr]

There isn't anything I could do now. I just said, I think I'm gonna just check out for a few minutes. It was this. Because the stress had been so great. It was the last straw. I just.

[Al Haines]

I blacked out when the airplane hit the ground. I know we were going way too fast and too hard. I was knocked out. I don't know what I hit, but whatever on my head hit, it knocked me out.

[Jerry Schemmel]

I could feel his hit down and bounce a couple of times was the feeling I had. And then I thought to myself, as all this is happening inside the cabin, all right, there's probably some people dead already. There's probably a lot of people hurt. But now we're going to coast to a stop. And about the time I had that thought, we flipped over frontwards. I could feel us kind of moving up in the air. It almost felt like we were taking off in a flight where you leave the ground, your wheels leave the ground. But we just continued to go. Instead of the nose going up, the nose goes down and the Tail comes up and we flipped over that way. And the thought hit me about cartwheeling, growing up, done cartwheels with buddies. And it just felt like I was up on my hands and just kind of flipping over onto my feet. And that's exactly what we did. People were thrown all about the cabin. I mean, some still strapped in their chairs, some thrown from their chairs, some just kind of moving around the cabin. They were out of their seats, whether their seatbelts had given or the rivets in their chairs had given. There were a lot of people moving about the cabin after we hit down, and then debris and smoke and fire at the same time. We flipped over once and then broke off in the rest of the aircraft and slid upside down and backwards for another 4,000ft. So we slid a long way after we flipped over. And then we came to a very sudden stop.

[Narrator]

The aircraft broke apart and Jerry's section skidded into a cornfield.

[Jerry Schemmel]

Literally, the only light inside the plane was fire. The windows had dug in so far there was no light coming through the windows. Even though it was 4 o'clock in the afternoon. The overhead lights were out, the carpet lights were out, and I couldn't see and smoke was filling up the cabin. There are a few bodies in our area. Most of them seemed to be kind of piled up in one area, for lack of a better term, I guess. But there were some people that weren't moving at all. And with the fire and the smoke, I kind of found myself moving toward the people who were also moving, knowing that right away after impact, a lot of people in our area were not survivors. I think about half of us survived, half us didn't.

[Narrator]

It turned out Jan was seated at the front of the middle section. She was semi conscious and only feet from where the plane had torn apart.

[Jan Brown Lohr]

Maybe 50% of my mind was blocked off to contain the sheer terror of. You can't say it to yourself, but it's life or death.

[Narrator]

A fuel tank then ruptured and sent a fireball through the cabin.

[Jan Brown Lohr]

And now I realize I'm in fire. It was just, if you've ever seen the sun in the morning come up over the horizon and it's this huge orange ball. That was what I envisioned in my mind's eye, that I was hanging in this. And very specifically, that it was this 2/3 of my body that was hanging in this fire. And I just very calmly, as calmly as I'm saying it now, thought, well, this is it. This is how I'm going to go.

[Narrator]

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[Al Haines]

I was knocked out. I don't know what I hit, but whatever in my head hit it knocked me out.

[Narrator]

Jan is trapped in the large middle section which is upside down in a cornfield. Burning aviation fuel has engulfed her in flames.

[Jan Brown Lohr]

And I just very calmly, as calmly as I'm saying it now, thought, well, this is it. This is how I'm going to go. It was very. It was the most serene moment I've had in a lifetime.

[Narrator]

The fireball that swept through the cabin lasted only a few seconds and I.

[Jan Brown Lohr]

Realized, oh my gosh, I'm still thinking. I was just amazed. I thought, if I'm thinking, I'm still alive. So the job just kicked right in right after that thought it was like, well, we're out of here. And I knew that airplane backwards and forwards in the dark because I worked it so much. And yet it was like waking up on another planet. I was instinctively looking for some light and in the dark I thought I saw somebody hanging at a 45 degree upside down angle and as I pulled him free, I heard somebody back behind me say, there's an opening. So I immediately went back and sure enough, there was this big open hole where the first class galley had been.

[Narrator]

Jerry was divided from Jan by a wall of smoke and flame.

[Jerry Schemmel]

Well, we found ourselves kind of herding people literally to the back of the plane away from that wall of smoke. And after about what, I'm guessing two or three minutes inside the cabin, after we came to a hole, I saw an opening. I saw sunlight behind me because I saw people merging through that hole to the outside. And I thought, well, that's my way to get out. That's our opening. I saw sunlight and corn stalks out there. And I thought, stay in as long as you can, try to help people and then get out that hole.

[Jan Brown Lohr]

I was focused on get these people out, get people out. And they were. I was holding this debris back and they were walking by me. And it felt like I could have been saying, thank you for flying with us today. It was so calm and I guess because we were all in shock. In the back of my mind I thought this could blow up any minute and I probably should be going further in into the darkness to look for people. But this smoke was coming towards my position. It was. I have never seen anything so dark and so lethal. This dark gray and like you would see a tornado. Except it was coming. What was now the ceiling had been the floor just roiling towards my position that were trained when the. The fire's too hot, the water's too deep and the smoke's too thick that you leave. So that's when I left.

[Jerry Schemmel]

Well, I was standing at the edge of the opening there and just trying to help people out the back. I was choking and I thought I got to get out of this plane myself. So I thought, look around, see if you can grab somebody else on the way out. I didn't see anybody else I thought was in a position where I could get them. And so I just took a couple steps out in the cornfield.

[Jan Brown Lohr]

It seemed like the. There were people going in every direction. When I did get far enough, the first person that I ran into was the mother of this 22 month old boy. And I knew she was headed back to the wreckage. And I just stood in her way and she said, I have to go back and get my son. And I just told her what I thought would stop her. I said, there are men who, who go and get him. And I continued to block her. And she said, then she looked up at me and she Said, you told me to put him on the floor and it would be all right. And he's gone.

[Jerry Schemmel]

I thought about an explosion. I thought that the wreckage might explode. It always does on television. So I started thinking about sprinting away from the wreckage. And about the time I thought I heard crying back inside the wreckage. And I didn't think about it, didn't weigh a risk. I didn't think if I go back in the plane, I might not find my way back out or I might find a child. I just heard it and reacted. The next thing I know, I'm back inside the plane. Through the smoke, just honing in on the cries is how I found the baby. I couldn't see anything at this point. It was completely full of smoke. And the baby somehow was just a couple feet back in the. Inside the wreckage, not very far back. And I didn't have to go very far at all. It sort of was. She was just sort of there and was able to get her out of what I believe today, I'm not positive, I think was an overhead bin. I think the baby was thrown into an overhead bin, which amazingly had closed and locked on her. And I had to actually lift a latch and lift the lid up to get her out. And as soon as I grabbed her, I just sort of scooped her out of this hole with one arm. And as soon as I touched her and put her in my arm, she stopped crying. And the conscious thought hit me that maybe she wasn't even alive, maybe she had died in this interim. And so I held her out in front of me and she was fine. She was alert and conscious, and she had a little scrape on her face. She had a cut just below her left eye. And I wiped that blood away that was coming down her cheek with my sleeve, and that was it. It turned out the extent of her injuries thrown, we're told later, about 20 rows inside that plane into an overhead bin and comes out with a scrape on her face.

[Narrator]

The baby girl, Sabrina, was reunited with her family soon after. Jan is trying to prevent a mother from re entering the wreckage to look for her infant son.

[Jan Brown Lohr]

And I just stood in her way. And she said, I have to go back and get my son. You told me to put him on the floor and it would be all right. And he's gone. And I really started to get some feeling back at that moment, because as a mother, you can certainly relate that. I just thought to myself, I'll live with this for the rest of my life. But I just looked down at her and I said it was the best thing to do. It was all we had. But I think at that moment I knew that there had to be something else. That this was just as I said when I was making the announcement. It was so absurd to tell people to put their children on the floor.

[Narrator]

Captain Al Haines has been knocked unconscious on impact.

[Al Haines]

I came to in the cockpit after the crash and Dudley was talking to me. The second officer, he was talking to me. And I vaguely remember that. And from that time until the next day. There's just bits and pieces of things that I remember. We were separated from the airplane of about maybe 40, 50 yards. Just our little section of the cockpit. We were upside down, of course, and crammed in the cockpit very tight. I was actually. My face was on the floor of the cockpit because they're upside down and so was everybody else's. And I didn't know what was going on. I just suddenly found somebody looking at us through a window up there. And then I said the things that I remember.

[Narrator]

The cockpit was the last section to be attended by the emergency services.

[Al Haines]

First of all, they didn't see us for half an hour. They didn't know that IR mass was the cockpit. And then they had to use cranes and chains to break the cockpit apart to get us out.

[Narrator]

Al required 90 stitches for a head wound and suffered a severe concussion. Jerry was examined by doctors and discharged later that day.

[Jerry Schemmel]

Almost everybody around me died in the crash. The woman across the aisle from me died. The guy behind me died. It was a one year old boy sitting in the seat right in front of me. He was on the floor between his mom's feet. She survived the crash and he died. So I'm in the middle of a group of people who perished in the crash. And the section of the plane that we were in. About half of us lived, half of us didn't.

[Narrator]

The aircraft had smashed into the ground at over 270mph and split into five pieces.

[Al Haines]

It turned out 185 survived, one died later on. And 111 were died at the crash because of the crash. And then one died. So 112 perished and 184 survived.

[Jerry Schemmel]

I think I kept a pretty stern face for about an hour and a half after the crash. Because I was with a lot of survivors who were waiting to go to a hospital. And we had to kind of, I think, keep heady for each other. And when I finally broke down, it was right before I went to the hospital in the ambulance. I got ahold of my dad And I just told him, hey, I was in this crash in Sioux City. A lot of people died, but I'm alive. I was crying the whole time. I couldn't speak, I couldn't talk to my dad, which is amazing. We're extremely close. And I thought, if you're able to talk to anybody after this, it should be your father. And I just. I couldn't get anything out.

[Al Haines]

For three days. I would not let TV or newspapers or anything into the room because I needed to talk to the National Transportation Safety Board. Once they came in and did their interview, I said, okay, now we can turn the television on. My wife was standing by the bed. They turned the television set on and it was just as if you queued up that video of the crash. And when I saw the crash, I said, who was that? And she said, that was you. And I said, no, it couldn't have been because no one's going to survive.

[Jan Brown Lohr]

It was just incredible. You just couldn't believe that anybody would have survived that. To have broken up into three different sections and to have flipped over and. And yet I believe that was the most survivable section. And probably it all happened in about 15 seconds.

[Al Haines]

One of the biggest problems with an accident like this is not only, you know, is the guilt of survival, the fact that you survived and someone didn't. I didn't realize how serious that is. That was one of my biggest problems was why was I allowed to survive when so many people.

[Jerry Schemmel]

The post trauma stress was tougher than the crash itself. In many ways the survivor's guilt hit me like a ton of bricks. I never saw it coming. I felt like I should have been the luckiest guy in the world. I survived this crash and everybody around me died and I couldn't feel that. I just felt guilty because all these people were gone, including a one year old boy in front of me.

[Narrator]

The infant boy in front of Jerry was named Evan Tsao.

[Jan Brown Lohr]

I survived because I honestly feel there was still work for me to do here. And it didn't take me long to discover exactly what it was.

[Narrator]

Since the crash, Jan has lobbied for a change in child safety practices on board airplanes. The official investigation into the crash found that Al and his flight crew greatly exceeded reasonable expectations.

[Al Haines]

People ask me why I survived. I have no idea. I was just one of the fortunate ones. Like 183 others.

[Narrator]

Apartments.com has more rental listings than anywhere else. So finding the perfect place is easier than ever. And so is finally moving in together, just the two of you. It's a Big step, lots of new responsibilities, lots of adjustments. But most likely they'll wake you up at odd hours to go to the bathroom and you'll most definitely find yourself in trouble coming home late for dinner. They might even unroll all your toilet paper next time. It's just what happens when you two find a new place together. But you're not doing it because you feel like it. No, you're doing it because you love them, because they're family. And that's why apartments.com has the most pet friendly rental listings on the Internet. So that you and your furry family can find the perfect new place together. Apartments.com the place to find a pet friendly place. It's July 1999 in Alexandria, Virginia. 16 year old Ebony is returning home after roller skating with friends.

[Ebony]

It had to be 1:45, 2 in the morning because it was an all night skating in. So basically I was just walking home.

[Narrator]

Ebony was making the short walk from the bus stop to her home.

[Ebony]

My house was like maybe half a mile away, so. And I'm approached and accosted by somebody. He kind of like grabbed my arm like, and I kind of just snatched it away and was like, go away. And I after that, picked up the pace. He didn't say anything, he just grabbed me. I think he might have said something in Spanish, but it was so garbled because he was like really, really drunk. Like you can smell it. It was like a cloud of alcohol. I wasn't scared. I was more like peeved, like annoyed. Like it's a bug that won't go away. That's how I felt. So I was walking and he continued to walk behind me, but he was, I don't know, maybe he was a car length behind me, so it wasn't like it was right on me. So I decided to cross the street to try to, I guess shake him because I thought maybe he was walking the direction I was walking in because I've already told him no. So maybe he got the message and he understood. He crossed the street right behind me. So I didn't think anything of it because I was almost home. And I knew once I get through the first door it locks. So he's not going to be following me.

[Narrator]

Ebony was directly across the street from her apartment.

[Ebony]

That was when I had enough of him following me and I wanted him to go because I didn't want him to know where I lived. So that is when I turned around to tell him to go away. But I wouldn't have said that. I would have said Something else. I can't say it. And he stopped. And he just kind of looked at me. Felt weird, like, why didn't he. Why did he stop? But while I'm talking to him, I didn't know there was somebody else waiting in the shadows behind me. So then I felt somebody grab me from behind, like, really, really hard. And I just remember thinking, what. What is this about? And I tried to jerk, but the shorter. The guy that was in front of me that I stopped to say go away to is right there. And he kind of, like. I guess he kind of grabbed me by my waist because I was like, kicking and screaming and saying no. It was so close. My mother could have looked out my window and saw it happening. That's how close it was.

[Narrator]

The two men tried to drag Ebony down a stairwell.

[Ebony]

From the point where they. When the guy grabbed me by my shoulders to the stirwer, it's only about six or seven feet, so it's not that long to. It's not that far. So they kind of, like, carried me. But I managed to grab hold of the railing. And I tried to. I tried to hold on, but my hand was slipping, and it kept trying to grab my hand off. And I'm just like, if I let go, then, you know, then I'm done. But I knew I couldn't hold on forever. I'm not that strong of a person. And besides, you know, it's two against one, you know? So eventually they got my hands loose, and so they just. They dragged me down there. The first one, the shorter of the two, he. First. He would. He would get behind me and choke me. And the one who was behind me, the one I didn't know about, was taking off my pants. And at first he tried to penetrate me, but I kind of fought him off. And while I was fighting him off, the other one would either choke me or he would bite me on my shoulder or my ear, my cheek, and anywhere he could bite me. So eventually. This is really weird, and this is gonna sound weird. I convinced him to use a condom. I kind of begged. I was like, just please use one. It'll be easier for all of us. Just please, you know, what you're doing is a crime, and it'll be easier for you to get away. That's basically what I said, which is really sick when you think of it. And he stopped and he took one out of his back pocket. And I was thankful for that because things could have been a lot worse, I guess. At that point, I knew I was gonna get raped. I just knew me against them. I wasn't gonna. Wasn't gonna make it. So I was gonna just try to minimize the damage after if I was to live. You know, when you're 16, you think you're invisible and you're immortal, and nothing like that really happens. It's just stories that you read in Cosmo magazines. But when they dragged me down there, it's like, I couldn't believe this is happening. I just. I just thought I was really, like, this cannot be happening to me. The first one who approached me was the shorter of the two. He would get behind me and put me in a chokehold. So every time I would scream, I would get choked out. It would be choked out to the point that I start seeing the black spots in front of my eyes. So I would calm down, and I pretty much kind of cooperated, because if I didn't, then I would have either been killed or I would have been passed out, and I wouldn't have the opportunity to get away when the opportunity presented itself. So I just kind of became passive. Well, after the first one got done, I got pushed further down the stairs, so I kind of fell down a couple stairs and ended up at the bottom. And then the shorter one, he had his turn. So every time I would try to resist him, he would sodomize me. And I remember thinking, like, when he was gone, I just was numb. I didn't move. I didn't touch him. I didn't do anything. And I remember him, like, being mad at that, that I didn't respond. And he bit me on my breast, and it hurt so bad. He. He bit me, and I lost, like, feeling in my left side of my face because I think he bit through a nerve. And he bit me on my shoulder, which left a nice scar. And he bit me on my butt. And it was like I was some piece of meat that they annulled on. And that's how I felt. And it made me feel disgusting. They would get violent when I would resist or I wouldn't respond, like, sexually to whatever it is that they were doing, even when they were raping me. It was really sick to say this, but they were gentle. But if I resisted them, then it would become violent. But other than that, it was kind of sick because it was like they making an attempt to be actually intimate with me, like, gently, which really is sick to me. You know, you're forcing me to do something, but you're trying to put a band aid on it by being gentle when you're doing it. I just remember just looking up at the sky and the weird thing I remembered, it was a spider web. And usually I don't like spiders, but I thought to myself, you know, if I'm gonna die here tonight, just let me look at one more thing. Even if it is a spider, it's better than having to look at nothing, even though I clearly hate spiders. So I just stood there, and I looked up, and I just looked at the spiderweb. I just thought that I'm not gonna live. Somebody's gonna come in the morning and find my body here. My mother's gonna have to bury me. And it just broke me. I definitely thought I was gonna die. Without a shadow of a doubt. That was my last night on Earth. At first I was thinking, you know, I'll just resign myself. But after a while, I thought, do I really want my family to have to bury me at 16? No. So that was when I got up, and I was like, this is not gonna happen. This is where it stops. I remember clearly what they were doing. One of them picked up the condom, and I remember looking at it, and it had, like, grit and dirt on it. And I was like, I can't use that again. So he turned around to find his pants because everything was scattered all over the place. My clothes and everything were ripped, and I didn't have anything going from the waist down. One of them was looking for the condom, and the other one was the lookout. So that's when I saw my opportunity to leave. And I remember just standing up and told me, just get your keys and run. And I looked around, and I saw something. I saw, like. It was like the moon shining on my keys. And I grabbed them and I ran. And I don't even know how fast I was running. And I jumped over anything that was in my way, but I just knew I ran. I didn't look. One of them was looking for the condom, and the other one was the lookout. So that's when I saw my opportunity to leave. And I never dashed up a flight of stairs so fast in my life. And I don't know, it was like one fluid movement, and I knew they scurried. I could hear them scurrying in the background to get their stuff and leave, but I didn't care. I just wanted to get home. I just ran. I didn't scream or anything. I just ran. So I just ran home. Like, just ran straight to the door. I was, like, naked and bleeding and bruised. But at the time when I was running, I didn't think about any of that. It was just like, sheer adrenaline. I didn't feel any pain or anything. So I guess when I got through the first door, I ran upstairs and I opened my second door and I just ran up the stairs to my mother's room. And to say they raped me. And I just screamed it. And she jumped out of bed, and my stepfather jumped out of bed. My sister and brother jumped out of bed, too, and my mother called the police.

[Narrator]

Walter Salvador Tejada Limas was arrested in Florida after bragging about the attack. He was sentenced to 40 years in, will be deported to El Salvador upon his release.

[Ebony]

Because the way the witness stand is and the way the, I guess the defense table was, it was right across. Right across each other. But what really, like, killed me was that he just. There was times he didn't even look at me. He would just look down. And there was. Sometimes he would just look at me and just would just stare blindly like he had no idea why he was here. Like he had came through my life and wrecked my world and didn't have a clue about who I was, and that would burn me up inside.

[Narrator]

Police are still looking for Wilton Yovani Argueda, who fled to his home country of El Salvador after the attack.

[Ebony]

I figured, you know, rape is not about sex. It's not about desire or wanting somebody. It's about control. If I wake up every morning and think about what has happened to me, then they are controlling my life. And no matter how many years in prison they get, they get put under the jail, they've won, they've done set out and did what they had to do. And I can't live with that. I'm not really the one to hold a grudge. I've already forgiven them, but I've never forgotten. I survived because I didn't hold. I didn't want my family to have to bury me. I didn't want that to be the last day. I wanted to see the sun rise again. I want to. I want to get married. I want to have kids. And I don't want my life to end like that. I want to live to be a hundred, you know, I want to live to see a whole century of the world. But I knew if I gave up that day, that was not going to happen. And I just couldn't live with myself if I gave up.

[Narrator]

Hi, I'm Stassi Schroeder. On my podcast, I share candid updates from my personal life, Chat with some of my best friends about what's going on in our lives, give commentary on the latest pop culture headlines, and sometimes deep, deep dive into random topics I'm obsessed with, like, human design. It's a bit all over the place, but that's how I like it. And you will, too. Listen to my podcast, Stassi, wherever you get your podcasts.