50 years after my father’s plane crash, three journalists tracked our family down. News reports from the aftermath of the crash of Eastern Flight 212 had floated around and came across the desk of the Charlotte Observer, the newspaper that had reported on the crash in 1974. My father’s voice was one of those you could hear in the TV newscaster report. He said “another voice lost in time of an anonymous survivor.” The Charlotte Observer journalists reached out asking if they could interview my father and me about the impact the crash had on our lives and how we reflected back on the time through the years.
I knew the story very well. My father had recounted it to me and my brother numerous times. We thought about September 11th differently than most people. We had written a narrative account of what happened that day. So had an Associated Press reporter who resigned from AP with the intent to tell the story of that tragedy that created the “Sterile Cockpit Rule” that forever after limited what pilots could talk about in the cockpit on descent toward an airport below 10,000 feet.
When the Charlotte Observer invited us to visit Charlotte for the viewing of the documentary, I met other survivors of the crash and many children of crash victims who did not survive. I went back to the crash site and listened to planes flying 1000-2000 feet above my head, the same path my father’s plane was supposed to be on that day before it hit where I stood. At the end of the Observer’s documentary, Théoden Janes asked the question that rang through the hearts of many of us in the audience. “Why is there no memorial to this crash?”
The crash left a traumatic mark on many people beyond those who knew people on the plane. Kids who had lived in Charlotte at the time recounted what they recalled to us. Residents of the neighborhood built atop the crash site invited us to their homes to share our stories and their sympathies. Aside from our verbal tales which had stayed with us for 50 years, we now had a community again. Over many months we gathered all records we could from Charlotte Mecklenburg Library of police and forensic reports. We visited the Federal Courthouse to receive their remaining records of the final court settlement. The memorial and the memorial website gave us a small sense of closure. Not of the loss, which could never be addressed, but rather an end to the sense of silence and isolation so many felt after that tragedy.
Beyond the expression of sadness, our community discovered great hope. I met some of the heroes who helped my father survive that day. I learned of the incredible generosity of spirit of the people of Charlotte who care so openly and genuinely for the people of their community and those of us who’ve been in their lives however tangentially. I had always felt an awkward sense when I flew across the country and landed in Charlotte for a connection. Now I consider it another community where I feel welcomed and at home in.
Thank you to the Charlotte Observer and the community of Charlotte for uniting with us.
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