Terror by Night: The Crash of Flight 1420
By Charles W. Colson

"What evidence is there that Christianity is true?" That's the scoffing
question Christians often encounter from unbelievers. But three weeks
ago, we saw a demonstration of Christianity's truth and power that is hard to
deny. A band of Christian choir members risk their lives during the American
Airlines crash in Little Rock in order to save a planeload of strangers.
The story--hardly mentioned in the press--begins near midnight on June
first in Little Rock, Arkansas. In the midst of a terrific thunderstorm,
American Flight 1420, a twin-engine jet, skidded down the runway, struck a row of
steel poles, and rolled into the Arkansas River where it burst into flames.
Inside the broken jet, panic and fire began streaking down the aisle.
But amidst the panic were pockets of calm. On board the plane, you see,
were some 25 members of the Ouachita Baptist University choir.
They were returning from a two-week trip to Europe, where they had
entertained Kosovo refugees in Austria.


In the chaos that followed the crash, the singers went to work. Barrett
Barber, a 19-year-old minister's son, lifted passengers through a hole in the
plane above an emergency exit that would not open. Choir member Luke
Hollingsworth escaped from the tail section only to go back to help
wounded passengers escape. On his own shoulders, the young man carried a woman
with a broken pelvis across chest-deep water to safety.
Choir director Charles Fuller got his wife out, then went back into the
burning plane to help rescue an 80-year-old man with a broken hip. He
was later seen guiding other passengers out of the fuselage onto the wing of
the plane.

The acts of heroism didn't end even after the young people had gotten
survivors off the plane. Rain and huge balls of hail were pelting down
on injured passengers lying on the ground. Choir members huddled over
them, using their own bodies as human shields against the hail and rain. They
even took off their shirts to form makeshift blankets for the injured.
When a physician arrived at the crash site, he told reporters he was "amazed
at the calmness and stoicism that I witnessed." Throughout the emergency, the
young people exuded a sense of peace. Where did that calmness come
from? One of the singers said he found strength by repeating to himself the
words of the Psalmist: "Thou shall not be afraid [of] the terror by night."

The heroism did not come without a price. Choir member James Harrison
repeatedly ran back into the burning plane to pull passengers to safety.
He was apparently overcome by smoke and collapsed. A few days ago,
James's friends gathered at First Baptist Church of Royal, Arkansas, to bury
him. Charles Wright, the head of Ouachita's music program, quoted the words
of James's Savior: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down
his life for his friends. We've all read reams of press coverage about the
Little Rock crash and questions about what caused it in the first place. But in the great
untold story is the answer to an even greater question: Is Christianity true?
Indeed it is, when a man will lay his life down for a stranger.

Copyright (c) 1999 Prison Fellowship Ministries



 

 Back

© 1997 Designs by Lejend
All rights reserved