Word: precrash
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Hope, Ga., in 1977, Flight Attendant Sandy Purl was not among the 70 dead. But she came to wish she had been. Hospitalized and sedated for shock, Purl would leap from her bed each night shouting, "Grab your ankles!" and try to force other patients into the classic precrash body position. A year later, she was still overcome with guilt that she had survived and her passengers died. One recurrent fantasy was that her arms and legs were gone. Says Purl: "I thought maybe if I had no legs or arms, I would be a victim of the crash...
...probably be known when investigators finish analyzing the contents of four remarkable "black boxes" recovered from the wreckage of the two planes and sent to Washington, where there are sophisticated laboratory facilities. Actually luminous orange, the devices record all conversations in the cockpits of the two planes and critical precrash mechanical factors. Though a full report may be months in the making, the search for a cause has already narrowed to a few key mysteries...