By Michael Rosenfield
WXY
ROMULUS, Mich. — When Flight 255 crashed moments after takeoff, 21-year-old Romulus firefighter John Thiede raced to the scene, only knowing some sort of plane had gone down.
“It was when we got to Smith Road that we saw the cockpit and we could see the word ‘West’... one of the firefighters Dan Kish said we have a big one and we knew right then it was a passenger airliner,” recalls Thiede. Thiede, now a lieutenant with the Romulus Fire Department, was the first on scene on the north side of the crash along with Dan Kish and two others.
The team started extinguishing flames, when Dan heard moaning. “Me and Dan split up, he went southbound, I went northbound on Middlebelt Road, checked three or four passengers to locate somebody,” remembers Thiede. “After about my fourth one I saw a chair upside down, I moved the chair to the right, I checked the lady underneath, there was no vital signs on her and then I saw the arm move.”
Full story: FLIGHT 255: Firefighter shares his story of finding the sole survivor Cecilia Cichan in the wreckage