On Christmas Eve 1968 the nation was closing out a year of turmoil and tragedy, not unlike 2018 has been for Fountain Hills. But 50 years ago the nation was ending the year on a high note by sending the team of Apollo 9 astronauts on a trip around the moon.
The astronauts were sending a Christmas message to the world that night, reading the story of the creation from the Book of Genesis against the backdrop of the earth rising above the lunar surface.
The “earthrise” message is remembered as a major highlight of the U.S. space program.
I was 16 years old at the time and my hometown of Bradford, Pa., became the backdrop of a Christmas Eve tragedy that has shaped the lives of many touched by the incident.
I was in church for Christmas Eve services with my family when, toward the end of services, the blare of a continuing convoy of sirens passed the church, an unusual occurrence in this small city at any time, particularly Christmas Eve.
A short time later the congregation walked out of the church into a cold, snowy evening. It was a pleasant snow shower, adding to the ambiance of the holiday, and all were wondering about the loud response of emergency vehicles. In this time before instant information alerts coming from our pocket or purse, news did not come quickly; but still there was information on the radio soon after most people returned home.
As we sat in church, along with hundreds of others in small churches around the area that evening, there was an airliner approaching its objective of the Bradford airport. While scarcely more than a dozen miles from where we sat in church, the airport sits on a hilltop were winds stirred up even the light snow and reduced visibility to about half a mile.
The Allegheny Airlines Flight 736 on a Convair twin engine aircraft originated in Detroit. It had stopped in Erie before hopscotching on to Bradford with planned additional service to Harrisburg before its final destination of Washington, D.C.
There were 47 people on board as the plane approached Bradford Airport, which is surrounded by a remote wooded area. Even today it is unclear what happened; everything was normal on the approach. There is some speculation that the flight crew was concentrating on visually locating the runway on the dark, snowy night and did not notice instruments showing them too close to the ground. A wing clipped some trees and the last words heard on the cockpit voice recorder were “pull up.”
The plane rolled to one side and came to a stop on its top in a marshy area of the woods more than two miles short of the runway. The Christmas miracle, if it can be considered such, is that there were 27 survivors to the crash. They made their way out of the wreckage through tears in the fuselage and built a large fire to signal rescuers and provide warmth. Twenty of the people on the plane would not make it home for Christmas.
As we go about daily lives we are distracted by what is happening personally and it is easy to forget that triumph and tragedy co-exist in this world on a daily basis. Not surprisingly, what is happening to us is the focus of our lives.
This is a time of year that we should remember that no matter where we place our faith, or whether we are agnostic or atheist, it is certainly worthwhile to celebrate the fellowship and love we share at Christmas and try to carry it forward through the year.
On a wall at home I have a poster of the “earthrise” photo printed with the words from Genesis. It is a reminder that this is a small world and we should care about one another.
