Thirty years ago yesterday, a United Airlines commercial jet crashed in NE Portland around NE 158th and Burnside. According to reports I read today, it crashed into 2 vacant houses and a grove of Doug Fir trees. 10 people died and many were injured. In the end, the cause of the crash was determined that the plane ran out of fuel while the crew was trying to resolve a landing gear issue.
What I remember is my parents getting us all together to watch the news accounts of the accident. We lived just south of the crash by Powell Butte and from our porch could see a large swath of darkness up north where we normally saw streetlights and such. The crash had taken out the power for an entire neighborhood. I remember this being the story for local news for days. Back then, it was only KATU, KGW and KOIN, with KPTV running re-runs of Perry Mason and Star Trek. Even as an 8yr old, I was glued to the TV. A gradeshool friend of mine’s father’s auto-shop up off NE Glisan was turned into a temporary morgue and triage center for a short period of time as the city hadn’t ever experienced this type of event. I also remember driving by and seeing this crashed plane in the trees.
Were you in Portland when this occured? What do you remember? As stated, I was only 8, so my memories may be clouded by what I was told or allowed to see. Thankfully, there haven’t been any other plane crashes of this magnitude in Portland in 30 yrs. (Knock on wood.)
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I certainly do recall the crash, DB.
I hadn’t thought about it in years.
Although we didn’t go out and gawk the night of the incident, it was always kinda cool to drive by the scene in the subsequent years and stare at the long since built-up clearing where the trees used to be and ponder what happened there.
I was seventeen when it happened, and remember it well. I was sweet on a girl that lived near 174th and SE Stark, and her phone/power was out for several days. It’s amazing more people weren’t hurt or killed.
Afterward, a relative moved in to the neighborhood at 164th & Burnside. It became a running joke in the family that Portland’s air traffic controllers should add a command to their repertoire: “A little to the left, please?”
I was 12 at the time and a Portland Journal newspaper delivery boy. I was out collecting the monthly payments from the customers on my route that cold night. When I got home, I listened to our police scanner as every hospital in the area was polled to determine each of their patient capacities.
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