US Air 1493

The wreckage of US Air flight #1493 at LAX.

Friday, February 1, 1991 was just like any other Friday since I had become a flight attendant.  Only three weeks away from my wedding day, I needed to get as much flying time in as I could early in the month.  My three years with the company meant I was still one of the junior flight attendants in San Francisco, so I spent most of my weekends either working in an airplane, sitting in an airport or sleeping in a hotel.

It was a clear, cool evening as night fell at the Los Angeles International Airport, known around the world simply as LAX.

Even though I had flown in and out of this airport hundreds of times, I did not know that: it was ranked the worst airport in the United States for runway incursions (when a plane or vehicle moves onto a runway or taxiway that it should not be on, risking collision with another aircraft), the ground radar was antiquated and not working, the controller on duty, who had been hired right after President Reagan's infamous mass firing of air traffic controller's in 1981, was ill-equipped for the task of working in such a congested environment, and that there was a light stand in the middle of the airport - that was built to illuminate the ramp area - that actually caused so much glare in the control tower that at night it was impossible for controllers to see parts of the runways.

I was blissfully unaware of it all.

Each year in our Flight Attendant Recurrent Training, it was emphasized ad nauseum that aviation accidents were the result of not one, or even two events, but the continual accumulation of numerous moments of inattentiveness, miscommunication and lack of situational awareness.  Multiple links in a long chain were typically broken before a catastrophe would result.

I was sitting with my crew in LAX's Terminal One, behind the podium for Gate 4, waiting for US Air's Flight 1493 to arrive from Columbus, Ohio (yes, the Eastbound flight to Columbus was 1492 - those folks in Marketing are clever).  We had already flown a "San Fran. turn," starting in LAX earlier in the day and flying up and back to San Francisco.

The crew working the flight in from Columbus was finishing their day in Los Angeles, and my crew and I would replace them, and work the last leg of the flight up to San Francisco.  From there, we were scheduled to work a different flight with the same aircraft up to Reno, Nevada, where we would finally finish our long day on the West Coast.

The crew and passengers of 1493 never made it to Gate 4 that night.  And I never made it to San Francisco.

As I sat behind the podium with my crew, two fellow flight attendants and two pilots, waiting for the flight to arrive, we were doing what any airline crew does while waiting at the gate: glancing through the latest issue of People magazine, catching a quick snack on the go or finally finishing off that day's crossword puzzle in the New York Times.

The gate agents told us the inbound flight was on final approach - meaning it should land within 3 - 5 minutes - when we sat down.  Minutes ticked by and no plane.  No announcements.  More time went by.  I got up and and stood behind one of the agents at the gate and looked at the flight monitor again.  It had Flight #1493 listed as "final approach."  The status should have changed over to "landed" by now.  It just didn't add up.  I exchanged looks with the agent and he just shrugged his shoulders as if to say, "I don't know either."

I walked back to my seat with the rest of my crew and waited.  Hurry up and wait.  Story of my life.  Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw our Captain briskly walking over to us behind the podium.  I will never forget the ashen, stunned look on his face.

"It's gone down," he said.  "Let's get out of here!"

We jumped up, grabbed our bags, and headed for the nearby Crew Room.  I don't even recall hearing if the agents said anything to the passengers waiting for our outbound flight.

Another view of the remains of the Boeing 737-300 at LAX.

The evening news was already on the television when we arrived in the Crew Room.  There were about 20 - 30 other pilots and flight attendants in the room, milling about on computers, checking their flight cases and looking at their mail files, as news started to spread that there had just been an accident right there at LAX involving one of our planes.

I walked over to a crew computer and immediately pulled up the names of the crew members on 1493 and printed it out.  This information would shortly be pulled by crew scheduling as soon as they realized what had occurred.  The crew was all based in Washington, D.C, except for one "extra" flight attendant, based in LAX.  None of the names seemed familiar.

I quickly called my wife from a pay phone and asked her to call my mother and family and let everyone know I was OK.  This would be hitting the evening news any second.  If you're a crew member and a plane from your airline crashes, you tend to get a lot of phone calls from friends and family.

Someone was quickly switching back and forth between all the local channels in Los Angeles to find who would break the story.  It's an odd sensation to be standing there knowing that something catastrophic had just occurred, and it would become a national news story in just a few minutes.

Word of an airplane crash at LAX finally broke through on one of the local stations, and then the other two network affiliates quickly joined the story.  One of the stations soon aired a live aerial shot of the crash scene.  The fuselage looked like it was relatively intact, and that there could have been a good chance of survival.  We didn't know until much later that another plane, a small, Skywest commuter plane, was completely leveled underneath the US Air 737.

What happened is that the controller had cleared the small Skywest commuter plane to enter runway 24L at its midpoint and then hold, waiting for permission to take off.  She lost track of this commuter plane, it wasn't visible from her location in the control tower, and she cleared the USAir 737 to land on the SAME runway at the same time.  The US Air pilots didn't even see the Skywest commuter plane until just before impact.

The propeller of the Skywest Fairchild Metroliner commuter plane is visible under the wing of the US Air Boeing 737.

Debris from the accident was strewn on the runway and taxiways on the north side of the airport.  Both those runways were quickly closed, causing an immediate 50% reduction in the operating capacity at LAX.  Flights had to be canceled, and when I ran out to grab a slice of pizza, I stood and looked at the bank of monitors in the hallway.  Half of the departures were listed as "canceled" and most of the arrivals were delayed.

We never saw any fire or heard any explosions.  I never even saw any emergency vehicles from my view inside the terminal.  It seemed like just any other Friday night at LAX, if you didn't know something had just gone tragically wrong.

We sat in the crew room silently, slowly getting numb as we watched the story continue to dribble out on the news.  Many of the initial reports we knew were inaccurate.  But the aerial shot of the burning plane was not.

The crew room filled up with employees as news spread of the accident. The mood was quiet and subdued, although everyone in that room wanted to strangle Tawny Little (a vapid L.A. anchorwoman).

Our flight to San Francisco was canceled.  Hours later, crew scheduling found us another plane and told us to fly it straight to Reno.  We boarded a somber 20-30 people who were still trying to get to Reno.  We taxied out and headed west toward the crash site, making a left hand turn right before the wreckage of the two  planes.

I moved to the empty last row of seats on the right side of the plane to get a look.  It was dark and hard to see through the smoke and flashing lights.  I could tell it had been an airplane, but I certainly couldn't tell there was a commuter plane underneath. Hazarding a guess as to how many people may have live or died was impossible.

By the time we arrived to our hotel in Reno, I learned that there were 10 passengers and two pilots on the Skywest commuter flight who perished instantly.

There were 83 passengers and a crew of six, two pilots and four flight attendants, on the US Air plane.  The Captain and lead flight attendant, both sitting on the front left side of the aircraft as it collided with a vacant building just off the runway, were killed instantly.  22 passengers, most of whom survived the impact and were able to get out of their seats, died in the aisle of the wreckage, overcome by noxious fumes from the smoke and fire.

The subsequent National Transportation Safety Board (N.T.S.B.) investigation would lead to major changes in over wing exit row seating, as well as major changes in procedures at LAX. 

In a strange coincidence, that definitively proves I can relate anything to hockey, the Vancouver Canucks' charter aircraft had landed immediately prior to the US Air plane on an adjoining runway, and the coaches and players were the closest witnesses to the collision and explosion.  Severely shaken by the event, they lost their game in L.A. the following evening 9-1, their worst loss of the season.