Surviving passengers and crew members of United Airlines Flight 232 gathered in Sioux City this past weekend to mark the 25th anniversary of the plane’s crash. On July 19th, 1989 the flight from Denver to Chicago slammed into a runway at the Sioux City airport and exploded into flames. Of the 296 people aboard, 184 miraculously survived.
In his new book, Flight 232: A Story of Disaster and Survival, Laurence Gonzales re-creates the harrowing journey of both those inside the doomed plane and the rescue workers on the ground. He says the agonizing drama is uplifted by the heroism and self-sacrifice in the face of unimaginable horror.
Gonzales is the author of Surviving Survival and Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies and Why. He joined Dakota Midday and discussed why the plane crashed and the stories of survivors. For more information on Flight 232 and the book, including video, click here.