The Best American Sports Writing 2011 (25 page)

At 10,000 feet—less than 1,500 feet above the highway—people on the ground below began to take notice, first in Idaho Springs, then 13 miles away in Georgetown, then from trails in the mountains. Some had to look down to see the plane. People pulled their cars over to watch. No smoke. No fire. So why was the plane so low?

Twenty-five minutes into the flight, Rick Stephens, a 22-year-old offensive lineman, thought the mass of trees outside the windows was unsettling. He got up and walked to the cockpit, where he saw Crocker and Skipper studying maps.

After Georgetown, it was less than five minutes to Dry Gulch, a piece of land about 10 miles from the Continental Divide. Skipper pointed to a mountain.
What's that elevation?
he asked.

Thirteen-five, Crocker said.

They were in a box canyon, and the highway they'd been following was about to end. It looked like there was no escape. Skipper banked right, a wide swing in a futile attempt to make a 180-degree turn to safety. The turn tossed a flight attendant, and the passengers hollered. Crocker yelled to Skipper: "I've got the airplane." He made a sharp left. The plane began to vibrate like a speedboat slapping water; the engines stalled. As the plane lost altitude, Crocker nosed up, and the first trees thwacked against the plane's wings. There was a low rumble. Then darkness.

Skipper awoke to a haze of smoke. He was still buckled into his seat. His nose was smashed and bleeding; there was no skin left on his knuckles. Crocker was no longer in the cockpit. A ball of fire was advancing toward the front of the plane. Skipper blacked out.

 

The smell. That's what they'd all remember. At first it smelled like unwashed socks left to rot in a gym locker. But it grew into something more. Eventually, it became stomach-turning, gag- inducing—a pungent funk, one difficult to explain in any human terms. Later, when the boys from Alpine Rescue would get together, they'd find that there was only one word to describe that smell: death.

As the Alpine crew pushed farther up the mountain on October 2, the odor wafted toward them and nearly froze John Putt in his hiking boots. The excitement he'd felt unloading gear 20 minutes ago drained from his body.

It was a rifle-straight shot uphill through smoke. The landscape grew hazy, darker, more ominous, as they ascended the mountainside. Boulders, stumps, rescuers—they all turned into shadows in the dimming light as the sun slipped behind the trees. Branches snapped and crackled as the teenagers headed up the mountain: 100 vertical feet. Two hundred feet. Putt was losing ground. His legs burned.

Baroch, a high school junior, distracted himself by repeating the contents of his pack, over and over:
batteries, compass, freeze-dried food, map, water. Batteries, compass, freeze-dried food, map, water.

Three hundred feet.

Thirteen-year-old Mike Dunn couldn't wait to hit the crest. Along with Putt, he was one of the youngest on the rescue team, another eager-to-please junior high kid ready to prove himself to the older boys. The smoke and the smell didn't discourage him.

Four hundred feet.

Dunn's brother, 14-year-old Alpine rookie Kevin Dunn, couldn't believe his luck.
What kid gets to do this ?
he asked himself.

Four hundred and fifty. There was still plenty of ground to cover.

Greene, the college freshman, wondered if this was what war looked like. Of all the scenes Alpine Rescue had given him over the years—finding lost hikers in a blizzard, recovering bodies fallen from cliffs—this one would stay with him. He'd see this scene once more—30 years later when he was a nuclear physicist in New Mexico. His house would burn to the ground in Los Alamos, and as he'd stand among the smoldering remnants with his wife, he'd remember climbing this mountain on this day, and what he saw when he reached the crash and looked around.

No matter how bad the scene was, the boys were trained to remain focused.
This is your job,
Greene thought.
Do it right.

As they approached the crash site, the boys funneled into a line and walked silently, one by one. They could now hear small fires crackling. Trees were scorched, bent, and broken; bolts and rivets and pieces of the plane's wing surrounded them, like someone had tipped over a massive garbage can. Ahead, more broken trees. The teenagers inched closer to the hill, and the smell became even more intense. And then, there it was, the mangled propeller and landing gear. They paused. Greene crossed himself and began to pray.

 

Get out!
That's what the Wichita boys thought.
Get the hell out now! Run!

Rick Stephens, the offensive lineman, had been behind the cockpit a few moments earlier, and now he was waking up on the side of a steep mountain with a cut on his forehead. Both of his legs were fractured, his hip was dislocated, and his sternum was crushed. The sky was turning black.

Fuel sprayed everywhere and doused the passengers. Taylor, the cornerback, crawled out of a hole in the aircraft, but found himself standing in a puddle ofjet fuel and caught fire. So did Reeves, the team trainer. His body was badly burned. The survivors were now running on adrenaline: they started gathering others who were clawing their way out of the plane. Skipper, the first officer, regained consciousness and crawled to safety, then began pulling passengers away from the wreckage. One by one, they came: Mike Bruce, an offensive lineman. Randy Jackson, the team's star running back. Dave Lewis, a defensive end. Others were coming.

We've got to move back! The plane could explode!
Bruce volunteered to get help and scooted down the mountain.

Inside, the plane was a mess of broken seats: the players' heavy, unrestrained bodies had plowed into them like they were tackling dummies. People were alive, but they were pinned between seats, struggling to free themselves. Of the passengers, nine were accounted for. Renner, the quarterback, was stuck beneath one of the seats. He freed himself and then turned his attention to three teammates. No one could move. Renner stood above his friends, his roommates, and tried to pull them from the wreckage. "Bobby!" one of them shouted to Renner, "I'm burning! Get out of here!"

 

It was getting cool on the mountain. The boys from Alpine Rescue saw the flames and smoke and broken-up plane. They looked right and saw snapped pine trees, sawed off at perfect angles, the white wood glowing like porch lights. In a small valley to the left, it looked as if a section of the forest had been clear cut.

Less than 20 yards away, in the dimming light and hazy smoke, Steve Greene saw the remains of bodies in seats and in the center aisle of the aircraft. One wing stuck out perpendicular to the mountain's slope and was buried under a thicket of broken tree limbs. A small fire glowed orange near the middle of a metal pile, a few feet from an engine and what appeared to be landing gear; a fireball had ripped through the wreckage earlier.
My God,
Putt thought,
it's like witnessing the apocalypse.

In reality, it was a smallish disaster area—a strip of land no bigger than a couple hundred square yards, a scab on the elbow of Mother Nature. John Baroch, thin with a long face and tousled hair, marveled at the site. In its last maneuver, the plane had eased into the mountain to avoid a direct hit. It was as if the pilot were attempting to ride the trees like a kid on a sled.

Near Baroch, Bob Watson scanned the damage and wondered how anyone would have been able to get out alive. Burdick, the 19-year-old mission leader manning the radio from the roadside, didn't have any new information from the sheriff. As far as anyone knew, they were still looking for survivors. To the group of teenagers overlooking the crash, though, it was oddly quiet for a rescue.

Theirs was a daunting task. Not only were they looking for survivors, but they'd also have to do it among spot fires, thick smoke, boulders, gasoline-slicked pine needles, and pieces of broken wood that stuck out like daggers. Baroch heard an order to turn on their helmet lights and flashlights.

Brothers Mike and Kevin Dunn popped their lights on, and the yellowish glow cast shadows across the trees. Watson ordered the group into a search line about 50 feet long. They'd sweep the crash site. The line was organized with the older boys like Watson nearest to the crash. They'd need to stay straight the entire way; Watson didn't want any stragglers.
Look deep into the trees and search the ground for bodies,
Watson ordered. The area was now a crime scene, and the rescue squad was careful not to get too close to the plane. Anyway, if anyone were still alive, Watson said to the team, they would be dazed and wandering far away. Someone spoke up: the force of an airplane slamming into the ground might have sent bodies into the treetops.

Putt grimaced. The last thing he wanted to do was look up. He kept his eyes toward his boots and wanted to disappear. The others began to walk; Putt moved forward about 10 feet and then stopped, afraid to move. No one looked back at him.

Mike Dunn was sure there would be at least one survivor of the crash, and he was certain he would find him or her. His brother Kevin couldn't believe that anyone survived the impact and fire. The reality of the situation had finally hit him. How were they, a bunch of kids, going to help someone injured in a plane crash?

Closer to the wreck, the heat was tremendous, and Greene felt it despite the cool evening air. Around them were scraps of metal ripped and bent like crushed soda cans. Gold helmets and shoes had spilled onto the forest floor. Watson could see the front of the plane—a molten mess, liquefied pieces of metal dripping and bubbling and already hardening like concrete onto the charred grass. A gaping hole split the fuselage into two distinct pieces; the plane's rear was more intact. Greene scanned the mountain slope. Every time he turned around, his eyes caught the wreckage.

There were larger pieces of debris—a door, part of a wing—and fallen trees stacked like Popsicle sticks around them. As the search team made a ring around the crash, first below the site, then above it, the late-afternoon light had given way to darkness. The boys' headlamps and flashlights gave off an eerie glow. If they were growing weary, none showed it. It was a few hours into their work, and still only part of the area had been searched. No survivors had been found.

As the others worked their way around the site, Putt remained frozen, his eyes focused on the ground. The boy was afraid to sit down on the logs felled around him, afraid of what might be under them.

And then his headlamp caught something. The black leather reflected back at him; it was a shiny square atop a charred pile of pine needles. He bent down and picked it up carefully. It was a wallet, still smooth and in nearly perfect condition. The boy stretched his thin fingers out and opened it. He saw a photo: a man and a woman and kids. Kids, just like him. A family, just like his.

Putt gulped for breath. His chest tightened. He felt sick. He'd come here to prove himself, but now he only felt fear. He dropped the wallet and wanted nothing more than to rip off his pack and run away. He thought of his fellow teammates:
Please come back soon. Don't leave me here.

 

It was around 10:00
P.M.
when the Alpine team headed back to the makeshift base. They hiked down the mountainside in silence, and when they reached the road, the asphalt was aglow in police lights and flood lamps. Next to a small ditch, Burdick, Wood, and a few others were waiting. Watson approached. After nearly five hours of searching, he told the waiting men, the team hadn't found anyone alive.

The group huddled for a few minutes as the rest of the team made its way down the last stretch of mountain. When Putt arrived, he'd gathered himself. The others around him didn't seem overly affected by what they'd just seen. Putt, however, was still terrified and kept quiet. In the biggest moment of his brief existence, he'd crumbled under the pressure.

The teens met with the other Alpine adults. The older kids who wanted to stay the night could, but it wasn't mandatory. There'd be work in the morning, perhaps to remove bodies. Burdick, Greene, and Watson agreed to spend the night there.

The kids were dismissed, and Putt found a ride home with the same teenagers who'd brought him up the mountain. It was nearly midnight when the SUV rolled up to the two-story house Putt lived in with his parents and six siblings. The front porch light was on; Putt rang the doorbell and his father let him in. Putt crept up the stairs to his room and changed his clothes. He fell into bed, exhausted, but he couldn't sleep. As the night's light cast shadows throughout his bedroom, Putt lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, thinking about the photo in the wallet. He felt sick again.

The boy got up and sneaked down the hallway to his parents' room—they were both asleep when he entered. Putt lifted the edge of the bed sheets and slid in between his mother and father. He could hear their breathing, and for the first time all night, he felt safe.

 

By the time the sun broke and ran a trail of light through the valley, Burdick, Greene, and Watson were already up. Slowly, the government types began arriving: the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the Federal Aviation Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the sheriff, the coroner. Ambulances parked along the highway.

The adults confirmed to the boys what had happened: the wrecked plane above them was carrying the Wichita State football team, and they now were presiding over the worst collegiate air disaster in the nation's history. Twenty-nine people were presumed dead. Another 11 were injured—some terribly—and were being cared for at Denver-area hospitals.

Plans were made: Burdick and Watson would remove bodies with two members from another rescue team. The four would be the only ones allowed to touch the remains. Greene would be one of the lead runners on the "litters," light frames that held the remains and were belayed along a series of ropes that led from the crash site to the road.

A bulldozer was called in from the Straight Creek Tunnel construction site and began cutting across the forest to pick up the broken engines.