Modern, sprawling, sophisticated metro Atlanta paid little interest this week to a moment of another time, another generation.
There were no big city broadcast or print reporters in attendance in Paulding County Tuesday afternoon.
That day, the board of commissioners of this booming community presented a proclamation to Sandy Purl, honoring the dead and the survivors of Southern Airlines Flight 242.
Purl was a member of the crew that day, 47 years ago; a flight attendant.
“There is never a day when I don’t think about it. And there is never a day when someone doesn’t remind me of it," she told me.
Southern Airways Flight 242 was on its way to Atlanta from Huntsville with 81 passengers and 4 crew members. A 30 minute flight.
Heavy weather loomed with a severe thunderstorm south of Rome.
The crew attempted to pick out a path through the storm cells using their on-board weather display, but they were apparently misled by the radar.
“The hail was deafening. It sounded like boulders hitting the wing,," Purl recalled from her Griffin home.
“The cockpit never validated an emergency. I could see they had their hands full. The windshield was cracked by hail.”
Captain William McKenzie reported the left engine of the DC 9 had flamed out.
Air traffic controllers advised him to try landing at Dobbins Air Force Base.
With his right engine gone, Captain McKenzie realized a minute later he could not make it to Dobbins, and asked for the nearest airport.
“I went to the back of the plane," Purl continued. "I barely got in my jump seat and seat belt.”
Controllers gave him Cartersville coordinates, but Captain McKenzie knew he would not make that either.
The 54-year-old Louisiana native would attempt to land the big plane on a roadway.
The captain was trying to restart the engines as his first officer tried to land the plane on Georgia Highway 92 in Paulding County, 31 miles west of Atlanta.
“I thought we were on a runway," Purl said. "It was a smooth touchdown. But we went over a car and back up, and then started rolling like a rag doll.”
The plane made a seemingly perfect landing on Highway 92 in New Hope.
According to the New Hope Fire Chief John R. Clayton, “it held the road for approximately 300 yards, disintegrating as it went. But the road was too narrow and the wings clipped gasoline pumps, the chain link fence outside an elementary school and pine trees.”
Purl remembers those pine trees cracking, and the four explosions. Then silence.
There was nothing left of the plane.
“Impact? I never thought about it,” she said without emotion.
With a wall of flames up front, the second flight attendant moved backward.
Purl would exit through the broken fuselage, assisting passengers in their effort to survive.
“I ran toward the New Hope Fire Truck looking for help.”
The Senior Flight Attendant Carol Cooper survived unscathed by sitting in an area that provided her protection from impact forces.
She found herself hanging upside down, unbuckled her seat belt and walked away.
Purl would be hospitalized for three weeks with burns and cuts.
“I’m blessed my hair grew back.”
PTSD would be diagnosed later. Both flight attendants would resume their flying careers for decades.
Flight 242 has become mythic in the South.
Purl believes the regional connection has secured the legend, “Southern Airways was Atlanta based. Eighty percent of the passengers were from the South. We were diverse. So many local people were impacted.”
Purl remains steadfast in her judgement under fire April 4th, 1977. “My job as a flight attendant was to produce survivors. I know I did my job.”
61 passengers died. 2 crew members perished. 9 on the ground were killed. 22 survived; including the two flight attendants.
“Every April 4, wherever I go, I always read the names of my passenger list aloud from Flight 242,” Purl said.
“This honor was really humbling, but received to validate the lives that were silenced. There are only 7 survivors still living. If I can help just one person I will walk through the fire and share my experience.”
Three years ago, a memorial was erected in Paulding County to remember the tragedy of Flight 242. Thick Georgia forest amidst the crash scene now converted to a large shopping center.
