Jan
18th
Sun
18th
Friendships were struck on a frigid wing. Chivalrous heroes emerged beside selfish elbow-thrusters in what one survivor described as an “orderly mess” and another called “controlled panic.” There was tension, cooperation and even pure comedy, as more than a dozen passengers recounted in interviews on the day after in New York, Charlotte, N.C., and beyond. There was the woman in the fur coat who asked a stranger to go back inside the slowly sinking plane to fetch her purse. The man who carried his garment bag onto the wing with him. The mother who had to climb over seats holding her 9-month-old son to avoid a stampede, and the man who eventually helped them to safety. An older woman who walked with great difficulty, and a young one who tenderly kissed her fiancé before the landing.
