
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, May 25, 1990                   TAG: 9005250223
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: SEATTLE                                LENGTH: Medium

FEAR DOESN'T FLY WITH ACCIDENT VICTIM

A passenger whose head and shoulders were sucked through the broken window of an airplane at 14,000 feet says his few seconds of terror won't cause him to stop flying.

"I'm 38 today and I'll still be an alive 38 tomorrow. I'm just happy to be alive," said Gale Sears of Portland, Ore.

Sears said he remembers hearing a loud thud outside the cabin of Horizon Air Flight 2300 as the plane left Portland on Wednesday morning for Seattle.

He settled back, buckled into seat 2E as the 18-seat, twin-engine Fairchild Metro III climbed to 14,000 feet.

As the plane began its descent over Olympia, Sears heard a loud bang - the sound of the window next to his seat suddenly blowing out. He was pulled toward a hole where the window had been, and his world went black. Rain pelted his face and shoulders.

"I just remember wondering: What in the world is going on? Is the plane going to explode? Am I going to go splat? Are we going to hit the ground?" Sears later recalled.

Airline officials said Sears' wide shoulders and two passengers who grabbed on to him may have saved him from being further sucked through the roughly 10-by-14-inch opening. He came away with a stiff neck and puncture wounds in his hands from the window's shattered glass.

Oxygen masks were deployed for passengers and the plane made an emergency descent and safe landing at 8:50 a.m. at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Sears was taken to a hospital, where he was treated and released.

Sears said he thought he popped back into the plane when the pressure equalized.

"I was still in my seat, but I lay across the lap of the gentleman next to me. He just held me, he held me."

Sears, financial manager for the Oregon National Guard, was on his way to a National Guard meeting in Harrisburg, Pa.

"All I know is that I was only that far from the prophet," he said, holding his fingers an inch apart. "But it didn't happen, and I'm extremely lucky."

After the accident, a man traveling with Sears passed him a scribbled note: "Gale - you should get first-class." A Horizon representative took Sears to lunch and introduced him to company executives before they put him on a Horizon flight to Portland for a free ride home.

Horizon mechanics were looking at the plane to determine what caused the window to break. Windows on all 33 of Horizon's Fairchild Metro IIIs will be checked, said airline spokeswoman Nancy Hamilton. She said the aircraft involved had only 700 hours of flying time and that there have been no similar problems on the airline's other Fairchild planes.

"The window was blown out. . . .Nothing hit the window," she said. "It was a completely clean break. As far as we know, it's an isolated incident. We're trying to determine what caused it."

The Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board said they had assigned investigators to the case.

by CNB