Behind him, downed electrical wires snaked around charred bodies. A man was running across her front yard toward her, frantically waving his arms, his clothing ablaze. That lovely spring afternoon, she stood in her living room and witnessed a scene almost out of a horror film. On Monday, April 4, 1977, Sadie was a young mother of three boys living in the small community of New Hope, Georgia. To this day I can smell the odors and I can hear the sounds. You don’t want them to, you don’t ask for them, but you can’t stop them. Burning hair will just make me sick at my stomach. And so many things will bring back the memories. “Most of the time,” she said 40 years later, “you don’t remember it until things trigger those memories. The pilot's attempt to save himself and his passengers occurred after the plane's engines failed during a heavy thunderstorm.įor years afterward, the scent of jet fuel and scorched hair were powerful sensory cues that transported Sadie Burkhalter Hurst back in time to the day when fire and death invaded her tranquil world.

The wreckage of a Southern Airways DC-9 sits in the front yard of a home facing the road that the plane attempted an emergency landing on in New Hope, Ga., April 5, 1977.

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