By John C. Ensslin
Rocky Mountain News
DENVER — Denver firefighter Jason Cole was standing with his captain, waiting to help a woman who had taken ill on a flight coming into Denver International Airport on Saturday night, when their radios crackled with a different call.
“Airplane has crashed on runway.”
The two men looked at each other for a split second with a look of “Did we just hear that?”
Then came word that the plane was a 737. The two men turned their medical call over to paramedics and sped off to the scene of the crash.
Again the radio squawked, this time with a chief’s voice: “We do have survivors.”
“Holy cow!” Cole said to himself. “This is the real thing.”
Cole, a nine-year veteran, said many thoughts ran through his head as they pulled up to the scene. This was one of many scenarios he and his colleagues had trained for. He knew that literally every second counted because it takes only about 90 seconds for fire to burn through the skin of an aircraft.
Just minutes earlier, Cole had been helping cook a dinner of Cornish hens and scalloped potatoes at the station, which is within 200 yards of the crash site.
When the earlier call for a medical assist came in, he told his fellow firefighters, “Don’t let this burn - we’ll be back in 20 minutes.”
Now, instead, they could see smoke pouring out of the wreckage and four rigs pumping fire-retardant foam onto the crippled plane.
He also could see a long line of passengers walking single-file toward the firehouse.
Cole quickly found himself assigned to a team that was tasked with gaining entry into the body of the plane and searching for anyone who might not have been able to get out.
He and firefighter Rock Brewer climbed up an inflatable slide on the left front of the plane. It had been used to evacuate passengers and crew.
“We were covered in foam, and it was like being on a slip ‘n’ slide,” he recalled Sunday.
Another firefighter handed up a line, and they were quickly able to extinguish a fire inside the craft.
So much smoke filled the area, however, that they could barely see a foot in front of their faces. Part of the plane’s roof had collapsed, too, and was covering the seats in rows 5 through 30.
Cole started crawling over the buried seats. Two firefighters on the opposite end of the craft did likewise. All four firefighters were then able to lift the roof enough so they could see the seats below.
There was no one sitting anywhere. The plane appeared to be empty.
The firefighters did a second, more careful search, this time on their hands and knees, checking under each seat to make sure no one was there. It was clear, although the floor of the plane was beginning to feel spongy, Cole said.
He credited the plane’s crew with having the presence of mind to evacuate passengers from the left side of the plane, away from the fire on the right side.
Everyone was able to walk out on their own except for a flight attendant who suffered an ankle injury, Cole said. Firefighters helped load her into a Hummer and took her back to the station.
“All and all, it was a success in that no one died,” Cole said.
“I still can’t comprehend it,” he added. “It’s just a real blessing that everyone’s alive.”