Airplane Crash Survivors Will Fly Again

Nov. 2 -- Jim Kahl gets angry when he hears about airplane accidents like Tuesday’s crash of Singapore Airlines Flight 006 that killed at least 81 of the 179 passengers aboard.

Kahl, who lives outside Pittsburgh, survived the 1989 crash of United flight 232 with his wife, Mary, and their then 14-year-old son, Jimmy. About an hour into the flight from Denver to Philadelphia, the DC-10 began a shaky descent and an eventual cartwheel into Sioux City, Iowa, where it burst into flames. One-hundred-and-twelve people were killed.

“I think when planes go down the CEOs and airline executives should be put in jail and then they will feel the consequences of what they have done,” says Kahl, who has vivid memories of the 45 minutes of plunging and bobbing before the crash.

“We knew we were in trouble,” he says. “There wasn’t any mass hysterical screaming like you see in the movies, just a lot of wide-eyed disbelief and some sobbing and praying. I was asking, ‘Why me?’”

While Kahl’s view about punishment seems to be a heartfelt response to his tragedy, most crashes are the result of a combination of technical problems and human errors, and rarely result in criminal charges.

Survivors Face Life Long Issues

Clearly, Kahl, like other survivors of airplane crashes, are irrevocably changed by the experience. While some survivors will fly again and a small study suggests accident survivors fare better mental health-wise than other airplane travelers, psychologists say many experience what is called “post traumatic stress disorder,” a cluster of psychological responses to the devastating event, such as nightmares and depression.

Lilli Friedland, a Los Angeles-based psychologist who has counseled survivors of plane crashes, says reactions vary depending on the person and how he or she has dealt with other traumas.

“Some experience survivor guilt, wondering why they were saved while others died,” she says. “Others feel there must have been a reason they were spared. They try to make sense of what happened.”