the first officer goes to full power and tilts the nose up so much a stall warning erupts in the cockpit. there s mayhem in the cabin. i just remember hearing people crying and screaming and i was terrified. mercedes mother and father help prepare her for the worst. through all of that chaos i remember hearing my mom s voice, her voice calmed me down because she was actually praying. i was holding on to my dad s hand at the same time [siren sound] 12 seconds after the warning alarm goes off, the sound of splintering trees shatters the silence on a mountainside at 8900 feet. trees impale the jet s hull as 17,000 pounds of fuel explode on impact. it was just the loudest scariest sound i d ever heard.
it was negative, no one had heard anything. it s late afternoon when the missing jet makes international headlines. coming up, the mystery of what happened to air new zealand flight 901. when we came around the side of the mountain and saw the total devastation, i was shocked. it just did not look like a plane.
the destroyed jet s wreckage spills over the top of a ridge. tragically if the jet had gained just 200 more feet in altitude they would have cleared the mountain. unconscious and seriously wounded, mercedes is trapped overnight in the wreckage. she finally comes to early the next morning. i was just asking god, you know, please give me a second chance. i just want to get off this mountain. just please, send people to save us. her prayers are answered when she hears a helicopter. i remember that two of the other survivors were jumping up and down and waving their arms. mercedes is too badly injured to get up but uses a shiny scrap of metal to alert rescuers to their location. i told them, i can t leave without my parents. mercedes doesn t know it yet
the noise of the disintegration of the airplane was so huge, i didn t hear anything else. january 20th, 1992, 6:20 p.m. airinter flight 5148 runs down and takes off from lyon, france, on a short commuter flight to strasbourg. 90 passengers are on board, most of them business travelers and 6 crew members. graduate student nicolas is in the last row of seats. i was visiting my girlfriend who was living in strasbourg. captain christian hekay and joel sherabin are in the cockpit of the revolutionary airbus
400 feet. captain collins realizes something is terribly wrong and calls for maximum thrust. the jet s nose tilts up 10 degrees and they start to climb. but as they pull up, the dc-10 s underbelly and wings gouge into the slope of mount erebus an active volcano. 70 tons of jet fuel ignite the cabin. the tail engine breaks off and roars up the slope, along with a horrifying trail of burning wreckage. deputy police officer ted robinson radios the crew. he s met with ann eerie silence. we kept calling 901. others were also calling flight