Mike Wilson is really counting his blessings this holiday season.
He knows the unbelievable suspense that comes when something suddenly goes unbelievably wrong on an airplane.
He knows because he’s been in two plane crashes and survived both.
The software engineer from Boulder was one of the 110 passengers on Continental Flight 1404 to Houston that veered off a runway Saturday and into a ravine.
He recalled feeling a shimmy at first, and then the plane skidding uncontrollably. It veered sharply off the runway and bumped across raw ground, he said. Then it “dropped like a roller coaster” before shuddering to a stop at the bottom of a ravine.
Wilson was seated in row 18 on the right side of the airplane, three rows from an exit. At the moment of impact, flames exploded over the right engine, he said. Panels on the inside of the airplane popped off, and everything went eerily dark inside.
“I was seriously wondering if that was it,” Wilson, 37, recalled of the moments between when he realized things had gone awry and the final stop. “Things popped into my mind. I was wondering, ‘Am I going to end up in a mangled wreckage, slowly dying?’ ”
It’s not the first time he’s had such thoughts.
Nearly five years ago, Wilson was in a small plane his father was piloting. They ended up crashing into Trinity Bay outside Houston, and both escaped unscathed.
He says he knows too well those moments when life hangs in the balance.
“It is fast, but it’s not fast enough,” Wilson said. “There is unbelievable suspense of wondering, ‘Am I going to make it through this?’ You have no control and no visibility of what’s going on. It’s all a black box to you, and you are helpless.”
He said the thought that keeps going through one’s mind is: “This could be it, and it could be really bad and really painful.”
Saturday evening, he survived again and felt intense relief when he had finally walked 10 to 20 yards from the airplane.
He has since joined his wife, Angela Wenk, in Houston. She had flown out earlier to be with family.
After a quick car ride to Austin to visit friends, he finally is finishing wrapping all his Christmas presents.
“I’m with my parents,” he said. “Everyone is really happy that I’m alive. My wife is overjoyed.”
Christopher N. Osher: 303-954-1747 or cosher@denverpost.com
