PORTLAND, Ore. — Forty-five years ago, Lynn Egli was on a plane to Portland, United Flight 173, but he would never reach the airport.
On that fateful day, Dec. 28, 1978, the commercial jetliner slammed into a Portland neighborhood where a memorial stands today.
Ten people died and 60 were injured.
“I was coming from Wichita. I worked at the Heston College,” Egli said during a recent interview, recounting the terror of that day.
He started in Kansas and connected through Denver, boarding United Flight 173. He was bound for Portland and excited to meet his girlfriend’s family and attend a wedding.
The flight was full. All had gone well, and for the crew, Portland airport was in sight. But things took a turn.
“Well, actually, first of all, we felt the plane kinda shake, and then they leveled off,” said Egli. “And they came over the intercom and told us they were going to need to circle, to evaluate something.
Egli said a bit later, a crew member came back with a flashlight and shined it out the window.
“They told us there was a problem with the landing gear, and that they were going to prepare on the ground for our arrival,” he said. “They were very careful in what they said, and that we would be circling for a while.”
Egli said he just followed instructions and waited.
“They never used alarming kinds of language of any kind, but it was clear they were preparing for some kind of emergency,” he said.
The passengers were told to remove their glasses and their jewelry. It was 6:10 p.m. Things were getting very tense.
“You figure anything out yet about how much longer?” someone from the control tower radioed the plane.
“Yeah, we, I have indication gear is abnormal,” the captain responded. “It’ll be our intention in about five minutes to land on 2-8 left. We would like the equipment standing by. Our indications are that the gear is down and locked. We’ve got our people prepared for an evacuation in the event that should become necessary.”
Egli said suddenly there was a lot of activity in the cabin.
"We had children onboard. There was infants -- babies on board," he said. Across the aisle from me was a pregnant woman, a young woman who was quite far along in her pregnancy, so they spent a lot of time with her, instructing her about how to brace. They left her where she was at.
As he continued to describe what was going on, Egli became emotional.
"But about bracing, so that she would protect -- sorry -- protect her baby. They took the infants and actually relocated those with children to different places. They packed a couple infants on the floor, wrapped in blankets right behind the bulkhead, the separator between first class and economy class."
Egli said they circled for about 45 minutes, giving him a lot of time to think.
“We noticed kind of a change, that we were starting to descend, but it didn’t seem quite right, because they had told us they were going to give us a warning when we were going to descend, and we got no warning,” he said. “A lot of the things, Steve, I learned later were things that from reading the reports about what happened that didn’t make sense when I was inside – afterward, it all kinda made sense together – the black box recording talks about one engine flaming out, number four going out, number three, number two, saying that they’d lost it all, and we were without power from about 2,500 feet and unable to steer at that point.”
The plane radioed they were in trouble.
“Portland tower, United 173 heavy, mayday, mayday, the engines are flaming out, we’re going down. We’re not going to be able to make the airport.”
“The next thing I knew,” said Egli, “we were hitting the ground. But what actually happened, back about six blocks, we started clipping off the tops of fir trees, tall Douglas fir trees. We went over the top of an apartment building by 15 feet without going through it. We hit into an empty house, where people had been evicted. We went across Burnside, slid across Burnside. When we first hit, both wings broke off, and row 6 forward of the fuselage went to pieces.”
Egli was in row 13 and his area stayed intact.
“The wheels broke off, and we just slid, like without wings, without the front, through another house, on the north side of Burnside and came to rest in the backyards of people and apartment buildings and houses that are there,” he said.
Egli still isn’t sure how he exited the plane.
“And the next thing was, it was all quiet, and we were in the backyards of people’s houses, and they started coming out of the backyards; they came out of their back doors,” he said.
Of the 10 people who died, four were from one family.
On a recent day, Aimee Conner came back to the crash site on East Burnside to remember those who died that day 45 years ago.
She too was on Flight 173 that day. She was just 17 years old and returning from her grandparents’ anniversary party in New Mexico. She was headed to Portland for a brief stop before completing her senior year in high school in the state of Washington.
She remembers rushing to catch the flight.
“I don’t think I was the last one getting on the plane, but boy did I have to run,” she said.
Once on the plane, Conner settled into her seat just over the right wing. All was well until it wasn’t.
“What I remember was that there was this jolt and a really loud noise. No explanation, just the noise, and we all looked around like, what’s going on?” she said.
At just 17, she felt bulletproof. It would be just fine. But then.
"The pilot got on again and said, 'Look, we're making our final approach. It's five minutes away. When we have 60 seconds left, I'll get on and tell you, and I'll have you get into your brace positions.' And he never made that announcement, but the cabin lights all went off," Conner said.
What was going through her head at that point?
“We were supposed to have taken our glasses off. I was worried about my contact lenses – you pick out the stuff that doesn’t matter, because you can’t deal with the reality of what’s actually going to happen, you know?” Conner said.
She remembers hitting the trees, and then the ground.
“And everything went crazy,” Conner said. “I mean, it was just loud. There was so much pressure. The floor buckled. The seat in front of me pinned in my legs.”
She eventually got out, exiting through the hole left by the wing snapping off. Her ankle was injured, her adrenaline flowing.
It wasn’t until the next morning when she was able to comprehend just what she had been through.
“Yeah, my entire life changed in a way it wouldn’t have, and it changed for the better,” Conner said. “It brought me out of my selfish -- the world revolves around me mode.
Like fellow survivor Lynn Egli, Conner feels that she survived for a reason, a determination to give back: She works as a nurse in hospice care.
She doesn’t fly anymore. The last time was five years after the crash, in 1985.
“I was wailing and gnashing my teeth, and I got off the plane, and I kissed the ground and hugged my mother, and I said, ‘That’s it, I’m done. I don’t need to do this anymore,’” Conner said.
The National Transportation Safety Board blamed pilot error for the crash. The plane had run out of fuel. Capt. Malburn McBroom, a World War II Navy veteran and longtime United pilot had become preoccupied with a landing gear problem. The fuel, for a number of reasons, was burning at an accelerated rate.
Neither Conner nor Egli blame the pilot.
And because they’re alive, they know they were given a special pass, one that wasn't afforded to 10 others that day.
“Afterwards, this has had a profound impact on my life because I was given an extended life for a reason, and that I needed to make my life count -- make my life count for something,” Egli said. “I didn't do anything radical, but I've always tried to do things that were impactful and meaningful and give back to the community."
And consider this: Conner had open heart surgery when she was just 1-year-old, and then survived a commercial airline crash 16 years later.
“I’m lucky to be here,” she said. “There are a lot of blessings in this world I’ve gotten to experience as a result.”
Over the past four and a half decades, you can understand the questions of why me? Why was I on that plane that day? Why did I survive when others didn’t? How do I give back? All of it is shrouded in the mystery of life.
And for Egli, it really comes down to this: "It just reminds you how short life is, even those of us that would live to be 80, 90 years old, life is still very short," he said. "In the big picture, you have to make good use of the time you've got, focus on doing something meaningful, loving the family you have around you and making good friendships and all of that -- not live with regrets, not live with anything in your heart that you're holding grudges against somebody."
All the while remembering those whose lives were cut short on that cold evening 45 years ago on 157th and Burnside.
As a result of the crash of Flight 173, what's known as crew resource management is now a required training.
It's the idea that if you are a junior co-pilot, and you see a senior pilot doing something wrong, you need to speak up affirmatively.
The National Transportation Safety Board determined that in the Portland crash, the other crew seemed aware of the fuel problem but did not get the captain to focus on it.
He was focused on the landing gear at the time.
Capt. McBroom died in 2004.
Many of the survivors still hold reunions on the anniversary dates.
You can watch more of our interview with survivor Lynn Egli this Sunday on “Your Voice Your Vote at 9 a.m.
