Sioux City, Iowa — This week marks the 33rd anniversary of the crash of United Airlines Flight 232 at the Sioux Gateway Airport in Sioux City.
An exhibit honoring the emergency response is on permanent display at the city’s Mid America Museum of Aviation and Transportation. Museum director Larry Finley says visitors still come to learn about what happened that day when 184 of the 296 passengers and crew survived the fiery cartwheel crash down the runway and into a cornfield.
The pilot, Captain Al Haynes, radioed that the jetliner had lost all hydraulics and he could only make right midair turns with difficulty. Sioux City was the closest airport where he could attempt to land and that gave emergency rescue and fire units from Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota a chance to get to the airport and wait for the plane.
While it was a tremendous blessing to have such a broad and immediate emergency response, it also revealed a critical problem.
Finley says since that day, crew members and many others with connections to the crash visit the museum; many during this time of the year.
The museum is located near the airport at 2600 Expedition Court.
