![]() ![]() They are wonderful things, cigarettes, but they could keep their lemonade, I was desperate for a cup of tea. "A bus took us to the airport, they gave us cigarettes and lemonade. "I stood up and ran as fast as anyone could run and when I looked back I couldn't believe the size of the hole in the plane-you could have driven three cars through it." ![]() It took some skin off my elbows, that was the sum total of my injuries." The aisles were full of people pushing and shoving, I stayed sitting down and then thought, 'this is ridiculous', got up and jostled into the queue to slide down the chute. The cabin crew came into their own and said they were going to put chutes down. "When we began to see the lights of Honolulu I knew it would be all right, by then we were in a controlled descent. LOOKING BACK: Suellyn Caudwell has never been spoken publicly about her experience 26 years ago on United Airlines flight 811. Although I was behind them I didn't see them vanish, it was so quick." Some people were on the floor, some went into the engines, two engines perhaps. "Some of the seats by the emergency exit disappeared in the snap of a finger. I still can't bear that noise and don't use 'huffers'. ![]() "We were coming down and down and down, the cabin was decompressing and there was this ghastly noise. "When the pilot said, 'we're trying to get back to Hawaii', you knew it wasn't certain we'd make it. I was thinking: 'This movie feels real, oh my God, it IS real, we are falling out of the sky.' "The cabin filled with something white, opaque, it looked like cotton wool but it must have been insulation. There was a refuelling stop in Hawaii, shortly after we were airborne there was this enormous bang, the plane whacked down and down, I could see the moon reflected in the water, I realised I was looking at through a gaping hole in the plane's side." I went out to dinner with friends and had to scoot at top speed to catch the flight. "I WAS returning from a skiing holiday in Canada, in Los Angeles. This is her first person account of the night she stared into death's jaws: ![]()
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