A week ago Ross Buckwalter marked an anniversary of sorts. His lifetime has doubled since he escaped one of Utah's deadliest disasters.
In was Nov. 11, 1965 when Buckwalter, then a 26-year-old graduate student at Brigham Young University, was sitting in row 17 on a sleek new United Airlines 727. He remembers reading Ski magazine as the aircraft began its descent to the Salt Lake Municipal Airport..At one point, the Sandy resident remembers thinking the plane was near landing, and he unlatched his seat belt and began to stand up. In the next instant, he was knocked momentarily unconscious and woke up to an airplane interior lit only by fire and filled with a cloud of acrid smoke.
"My first reaction was to get the heck out of there," he said."I said to myself, "If I get out of this I will be in a heck of a mess.' It's one of those times when your entire life goes through your mind."
He did get out. He stumbled, he believes, over some bodies and shielded his face with the magazine against fire and smoke and until he reached the emergency exit.
"I was close to being the last one out of the plane. I had burned shoulder blades and was passing out as I got to the emergency exit. Someone pulled me out of the plane and I jumped off the wing. When I got out, I was still holding the Ski magazine," said Buckwalter, now a consultant who frequently flies.
He spent the next six weeks at LDS Hospital recovering from serious burns and smoke inhalation. Some 43 people, including the woman who had occupied the seat next to his, weren't so lucky.
At about 6 p.m. the plane dropped like a rock from the skies, hitting a patch of soft asphalt about 335 feet short of the runway. The landing gear ripped off the fuselage and under-protected fuel lines on the plane's underbelly began fueling a fierce fire that eventually melted the roof off the plane.
At the time, the disaster was the third crash of a Boeing 727 in less than three months. After an investigation, pilot error and not the plane was blamed for the crash.
The fiery crash was the second-worst air disaster in Utah history and ranks among the state's 10 deadliest tragedies of any kind. The state's worst air disaster occurred in 1947 when a United Airlines DC-6 caught caught fire and crashed in Bryce Canyon National Park, killing 52 people, according Lt. Col. Jerry Wellman with the Utah Civil Air Patrol. Wellman has researched a book chronicling aircraft-related tragedies.
Mining disasters have accounted for the state's most deadly tragedies. A mine explosion in May 1900 killed 200 miners in Scofield, Carbon County. In 1924, 171 miners died in a coal-mine explosion at Castle Gate, Carbon County.
Also on the deadliest-tragedy list are two Utah avalanches, noted as the nation's second- and third-worst snow slides. In 1867, 60 to 65 people were killed near Alta by a series of avalanches. And a 1926 avalanche in Bingham Canyon killed 40 people.
One of the nation's worst train disasters occurred in 1944 when 48 people were killed and scores injured as the second section of an express train collided with and telescoped in the rear of the stalled first section at Bagley, across the Great Salt Lake from Ogden.
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Mine disasters
- Scofield, Carbon County, May 1, 1900. The premature explosion of blasting powder caused the collapse of a mine tunnel and the deaths of 200 miners.
- Castle Gate, Carbon County, March 8, 1924. 171 died in a coal-mine explosion.
- Wilberg Mine, Emery County, Dec. 19 1984, 27 miners died in a coal-mine fire.
Transportation
- Bryce Canyon National Park, Oct. 24, 1947. 52 people were killed when a United Airlines DC-6 caught fire and crashed. The airliner was bound for New York from Los Angeles.
- Bagley, 18 miles west of Ogden, Dec. 31, 1944. 48 people were killed and scores injured when the second section of an express train collided with and telescoped in the rear of the stalled first section.
- Salt Lake City, Nov. 11, 1965. United Airlines 727 crashes at Salt Lake Municipal Airport at 5:58 p.m. while landing. Plane burns on impact, killing 43 people.
- South Jordan, Dec. 1, 1938. 23 Jordan High School students and their bus driver were killed when a freight train hit a school bus broadside at 10600 South and 300 West. Utah's worst recorded traffic accident.
- Hayden Peak, Summit County, Oct. 17, 1937. United Airlines "mainliner" crashes en route to Salt Lake City from Cheyenne when forced off course by intense storm. 19 people were killed.
Snowslides
- In Alta in 1867 some 60 to 65 people were killed in the mining camps and towns in the Wasatch Range near Alta by a series of avalanches. In 1937, Alta became the site of the first United States avalanche observation and research center.
- Bingham Canyon, February 17, 1926. After more than a foot of heavy snow fell on the slopes near this town, an avalanche of snow, rocks and timber slid down Sap Gulch, burying some 75 people and killing 40.
Sources: Deseret News files; "The Great International Disaster Book," by James Cornell; "State of Utah Aircraft Accidents," by Jerry Wellman.