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<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><span style="font-size: 17pt">The hero of AA flight 331 </span>
<span style="font-size: 14pt">Petite JUTC driver Annette Howard helped injured after watching the plane crash metres in front of her bus </span>
BY ALICIA DUNKLEY Sunday Observer reporter [email protected]
Sunday, December 27, 2009
TUESDAY, December 22, 2009 was proving to be just another ordinary day for 32-year-old Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) bus driver Annette Howard. Even the fact that she was assigned a new route -- the 98/1 (Downtown, Mountain View via Port Royal) instead of her usual 77 route -- never prepared her for the heroic acts she performed after witnessing the crash of American Airlines flight 331 mere metres away from the bus she was driving.
Forced to drive at snail's pace because of the heavy rain which had been lashing Kingston for most of the day, Howard was on the last leg of her four round trips and heading back to the Rockfort Depot in Kingston along the Port Royal road when the unbelievable happened.
The 125-pound female, who has been overlooked by many except those she helped that night, serenely detailed the moments leading to her involvement in helping the 148 passengers and six crew members who were aboard the ill-fated flight which crash landed at ocean's brink at the Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston shortly after 10:00 pm.
HOWARD… it’s a miracle. All of them need to give them lives to God. Even myself too (Photos: Bryan Cummings)
Thirty-two-year-old Jamaica Urban Transit Company bus driver Annette Howard stands before the bus she was driving last Tuesday night and which she used to help injured passengers on American Airlines flight 331 after she witnessed the plane crashing at the Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston.
(Photo: Bryan Cummings) American Airlines Flight AA331. (Photo: Bryan Cummings)
HOWARD… it’s a miracle. All of them need to give them lives to God. Even myself too (Photos: Bryan Cummings) 1/3
"Mi si di plane landing and when mi si it, mi seh to the two people in the bus 'a wonder when mi a go fly inna one a dem plane deh'.
"Then, by the time mi come round to the Screwworm Eradication Centre at Palisadoes mi si di plane on the runway and it just run across the road about 50 yards from the bus and run over on the sand and just meck this big bounce. At the time it look like it split in bout five pieces but on the TV them seh three," she tells the Sunday Observer.
"When mi see it mi couldn't believe seh a plane really shot cross in front a di bus like dat. The sand fly up like is a big stone drop in it when the plane reach di sea side," she says.
An expletive preceded her "watch da plane deh crash" alarm to the two passengers aboard the bus before she went into action. From her description of what unfolded before her shocked gaze; the plane rocketed off the tarmac, crashed through the fence, dipped down onto the road before nosing up, across and onto the seaside.
"I guess that's the bump the people in the road felt (hitting the road) some of them talked about this big bang," she explains. "Mi stop the bus, draw up the hand brake, fly the two door dem and run out toward the plane. Mi nevah really panic. It took me about two seconds," says the petite mother of two who worked as a conductress with the JUTC for eight years before becoming a driver a year ago.
"By this time there were people running from the plane, so mi run towards dem to help dem 'cause some of them were bleeding through their nose. Some from their foreheads. A Chinese lady with her baby was the first to get into the bus. I didn't even think that the plane could have blown up," she says calmly, her cheek resting on her hands, a pose which she kept for most of the interview.
"Mi call 119, mi fren who was a passenger on the bus call 119. The response was quick but di police mi talk to never believe. Mi seh a plane crash at Norman Manley an' wi need some help on the scene an' him seh 'yuh serious?', in the background him was saying to the others around him, hear this, hear this," she recalls.
"Mi fren was telling mi to hang up on him because he called 119 and the police he talked to told him to hang up the phone. Dem tink it was a prank call," Howard tells the Sunday Observer.
Ignoring the stunned response of the authorities, she turned her full attention to the horrific scene unfolding before her eyes.
"Everybody was trying to get into the bus," she says. "It was pure noise. People were crying and calling out for their family because they got separated. The babies were crying. I carried over 70 persons in the first trip back to the airport.
"When mi get to the airport mi tell the police who were there and they helped to take the people off and I went back.
"Mi go back out for another set of people and there was one ambulance, a fire truck and a policeman out there and mi tek up a next set of people and take them back to the airport," she says.
On her return to the scene for the third time, the emergency vehicles and officials were out in full numbers.
Though aching by now, Howard recalls hanging around to see whether her assistance was needed before continuing her journey to the depot to check off her ticket sales for the day and catch the staff bus home.
"I got home about 3:00 pm. I was staring out of space because I really couldn't believe a plane crashed because it's only on the TV that you see that kind of thing," she says, chuckling at her own joke.
She would do it again, she says but under much different circumstances.
"I'd do it again because it's my nature to help people. But not another plane crash because probably next time we won't be so lucky.
"It's a miracle. All of them need to give them lives to God. Even myself too," she tells the Sunday Observer seriously.
Ninety-two passengers were reported injured when the plane crashed and broke in two after landing at the Airport shortly after 10:00 last Tuesday night. The Boeing 737-800, had just arrived from Miami in pouring rain when the accident occurred.
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