Sign up for our free newsletter:

The Crash That Saved My Life
Surviving the tragedy of Air Florida Flight 90 was only the beginning of my story

by Kelly Moore as told to Joy Beverly

It was an ordinary Saturday morning. But that evening my five-year-old daughter, Kinsey, and I were to attend a mother/daughter banquet at church, and Kinsey was bouncing with excitement.

As I got ready, a newscast suddenly caught my attention. While the details were scarce, the aerial shots of the Valujet plane crash in the Everglades convinced me everyone on board must be dead.

If it weren't for Kinsey, I would have considered not attending the banquet that night. I knew many well-meaning people would question me about my reaction to the crash, and I wasn't sure I could handle it. I felt connected—connected by a memory that sometimes seems forgotten but always is there.

On a bitterly cold January day in 1982, I strapped myself into the rear jump seat of Air Florida Flight 90, took a deep breath, and prepared for takeoff from National Airport in Washington, D.C.

As a flight attendant, I'd spent my day placating passengers who were either fearful or furious because of our many delays due to icy weather. Finally, after de-icing, our flight was allowed to leave. I settled back with a sigh of relief.

My family and friends
believed my interest
in spiritual things was
just a response to the
shock from the accident.

I know most young women envied my lifestyle. My job offered exotic travel, and my life at home in Miami was one of constant parties and friends. But lately the partying left me empty. Was there more to life? I wondered. But no one around me had answers.

As we began our trip down the runway, the plane picked up speed. But something wasn't quite right. Although I didn't realize it at first, we weren't getting off the ground as quickly as we should have. A few seconds later, we were airborne. But we were 1,900 feet farther down the runway and 15 seconds later than we should have been for a normal takeoff.

When we'd been in the air only a few moments, the plane began to shudder violently. Instinctively I tightened my seat belt. One of the passengers looked at me, terror distorting his face. But after that horrible image, my memory stops.

I have no recollection of the 737 crashing against the 14th Street Bridge over the Potomac River, then plunging toward the ice-crusted river. I don't remember the plane slicing through the three-inch thick sheet of ice and crumbling into pieces.

A prayer in icy waters
What I do remember is suddenly being free in the water, with no idea of how I got there. As I surfaced, I clung to pieces of metal wreckage floating nearby and tried to look for other survivors. The icy water made my entire body numb.

Other people floated near me, clutching at the cold metal and trying to stay afloat. But I saw none of the flight crew. Later I learned 74 people died in the crash. Only 5 survived.

As I clutched the wreckage and tried to stay above water, my hands began to stick to the cold metal. I lifted them one at a time to keep them from freezing. I feared I would not be rescued in time. People on the banks of the Potomac were unable to help us because of the icy expanse that separated us. I knew the only way we could be rescued was to be lifted out of the river.

In my desperation, I did something I'd never done before: I prayed. I prayed to somehow be lifted up. And though it was my very first prayer— offered in desperation and ignorance—God answered me.

After 20 minutes in the freezing water, I heard the beautiful sound of an approaching helicopter. It was nearly impossible for any of us to catch the rescue rope and hold on while we were pulled to safety. Every survivor was seriously injured, besides being weak and stiff from the cold.

After several tries, I was the second one of the survivors to be able to get the rescue rope around me. While the others were eventually dragged through the water to safety, I was the only one who was completely lifted up out of the water, as I'd prayed.

God has saved me from this crash, I thought. I didn't know why, but I knew it was his strength that allowed me to grasp that rope with frozen hands when I had no strength.

Lying in the hospital, I quietly prayed, "God, please tell me what I'm supposed to do next."

How God spoke
A couple of days later, when I was moved from intensive care, I woke to see a nurse standing over me. She smiled, covering my fingers with her warm, gentle hand, and said, "I could get into big trouble for telling you this, but God loves you, and he saved you from that plane crash for a reason."

In response to my eager interest, my nurse risked her job to tell me of Jesus' love for me. As she spoke of how he died for me, I responded by turning my life over to him. For the first time I felt real peace.

By this time many of my family members and friends had arrived at the hospital. I tried to tell them about my experience with God, but they believed my interest in spiritual things was just a response to the shock from the accident.

One friend was embarrassed and confused by all my talk about God. He probably just wanted "the old Kelly" back. During a visit, he handed me one of the get-well gifts that had been sent from all over the country from strangers. I continued to talk about my experience with God.

"I don't even know where to start in this kind of life," I told him. As I tore open the gift, I unwrapped the answer.

Inside the package was a Bible with a note from a stranger in California who'd seen the rescue on the news. The note said that if I'd never read the Bible, the book of John was a good place to start! I started there—and have never stopped wanting to know more about Christ.

A flight attendant who'd survived a similar crash visited me and listened patiently as I told her about my experience with God's forgiveness and power. "I know how you feel," she said. "I thought about God after the crash." Finally, someone who understands, I thought eagerly.

But then she added, "Don't worry. Your interest in God will soon pass." After she left, I lay in my bed crying, begging God not to let it pass.

Stronger inside and out
During my recovery, I stayed with my family in Atlanta, finding myself at the center of the media's attention. Reporters camped out on my parents' lawn. I even saw a photographer trying to take a photo of me through a closed window from outside the house.

My family urged me to grant an interview, arguing that if I gave them a statement, they would go away. Maybe this is my chance to tell the world what God has done in my life.

I faced the horde of reporters, telling them how God had taken care of me and how I had changed. Their questions focused on the details of the crash. When I read the article the next day, I was shocked at how they'd distorted my words.

I felt betrayed and began to wonder whom I could trust. But God brought loving Christians into my life who helped me look to him for strength through Bible study, prayer, fellowship, and quiet time.

A special woman named Gladys Coggeshall spent time with me, answering all my questions and teaching me how to memorize Scripture to fill my mind with good thoughts to replace the bad. After being broken physically, spiritually, and mentally by the events surrounding the crash, God began to heal me in every way.

After about a month, I returned to Miami. Gladys helped me contact another Christian woman who continued to help me grow. I found a local church and began to pray about returning to flying.

My thoughts were a mixture of fear and indecision, but I felt as though God wanted me to go back to work. After about five months of recovery and recurrent training, I stepped back into an airplane.

God's continuing care
At first everything seemed fine. The flight crew was aware of my past and was eager to help me succeed. But at take-off, panic enveloped me. I thought, What am I doing here? Why am I putting myself through this? Philippians 4:6-7 flooded my mind. Just as suddenly as the panic had come, peace replaced it.

One day a young man in the church named John asked me to go to dinner. I didn't know if I wanted to date. But I went. For hours we talked about the Lord and what he'd done in our lives.

A few months later, about one year after the accident, John and I married. I continued to work until Air Florida was bought by another company. With John's encouragement, I completed an early childhood education degree. When we started a family, I was able to stay home with the children for several years before beginning my second career as a teacher.

Sometimes I'm vividly reminded of the crash, like when my daughter Kinsey asked me not to fly to another city where I was speaking. "Please don't go, Mommy. I don't want you to die in a plane crash!" she begged.

"Kinsey," I gently reminded her, "I don't want to die either, but if God has it in his plans for me, then it's perfect for me. No matter what the outcome, I have to do what he tells me to do."

I don't know why God saved me from the Potomac that day when others died, or why he answered my desperate prayers for contact with him. But I do know God used compassionate, ordinary people to bring his love to me when I desperately needed it.

In his infinite mercy, he rescued me not once, but twice.

Copyright © 2000 by the author or Christianity Today International/Today's Christian magazine (formerly Christian Reader).
Click here for reprint information.

	What did you think of this story?
	Please to give us your feedback.

Home  |  People of Faith  |  Stories of Hope  |  Today's Culture
Build Your Faith  |  Laughing Matters  |  Archives  |  Contact Us

				Try Today's Christian Woman Free! Name Street Address City/State/Zip E-mail Address No credit card required. Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery. Offer valid in U.S. only. If you decide you want to keep Today's Christian Woman coming, honor your invoice for just $17.95 and receive five more issues, a full year in all. If not, simply write "cancel" across the invoice and return it. The trial issue is yours to keep, regardless. Give Today's Christian Woman as a gift Order a gift subscription!

FREE Newsletter Subscribe to the Today's Christian Newsletter    RSS Feed   RSS Help