36 years ago yesterday, in Sioux City.

A United Airlines plane carrying 296 passengers crashed at the airport in Sioux City, Iowa, after losing an engine which fell off the plane, taking out some main controls for landing. The flight was headed to Minneapolis when they had the issues happen. The closet airport was Sioux City.

The plane almost made the landing, but unfortunately it began to flip and breaking apart as it was making it’s approach to the runway, coming to rest in a corn field outside the airport. Sadly 111 passengers were killed, but 185 survived. Many injured and many were able to simply walk away from the crash.

My grandmother lived in a trailer court just across the river on the Nebraska side. My uncle lived with her and they listened to the whole thing on his scanner radio as it was happening. They saw the plane flying overhead just before it went down.

One of my uncles was an assistant fire chief for one of the volunteer departments that was called into work the crash. My ex-sister in law worked for one of the hospital as trauma nurse and was called back in to help with the crisis. Sadly one of passengers who died was a friend of my brother in law. They grew up in the same town in South Dakota. His friend was an executive for a minor basketball team in Sioux Falls.

Now there is an industrial complex where the corn field was.

A sad day in the history.

There also was movie made for tv a few years later. It laid out how the emergency management system is suppose to work. A far cry from what we see in the landscape today. The movie was done really well. If you have never seen it? It is on YouTube and worth watching.