The only person to survive the worst plane crash in American history has finally ended her silence – 25 years after the tragedy.
Cecelia Cichan was only four years old when Northwest Airlines Flight 255 burst into flames shortly after taking off from the Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport in Romulus, Michigan on the evening of August 16, 1987.
She hasn’t publicly spoken about the crash – until now. In the documentary Sole Survivor, Cichan describes the explosion that killed her parents and brother – a nightmare she continues to relive. “I think about the accident every day,” she told filmmakers.
“It’s kind of hard not to think about it. When I look in the mirror, I have visual scars.”
Cichan’s moaning and twitching arm caught the attention of firefighter Lt. John Thiede, who pulled her out of the wreckage.
“You’d hear that faint cry a baby doll makes. At that time where I looked to my right, I could see an arm – kind of bent, coming out of a chair,” Thiede told NBC News.
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Cichan was taken to hospital with a fractured skull, broken collarbone, broken leg, and serious burns on 30 per cent of her body. No one knew who she was until her grandfather identified her by her chipped front tooth and the purple nail polish her grandmother had painted on the girl’s fingernails before the trip.
While Cichan’s story made headlines around the world, her family shielded her from the spotlight.
But when filmmakers approached her with Sole Survivor, she says it felt right. The film focuses not just on Cichan, but others who survived commercial plane crashes.
“This, like, Sole Survivor project, is more about a group – and that’s why I was willing to get involved and be a part of something bigger,” she told filmmakers.
Over the years, Cichan has kept in contact with the families of the victims, and Thiede. In fact, the man who saved her life attended her wedding day.
“To see her come down the aisle, my heart, I lost it really,” Thiede says in the documentary. “Just to see her in person was something.”
Documentary director Ky Dickens said, “I can say that Cecelia is happy, she’s grounded, (and) she’s doing wonderful.”
Filmmakers say Cichan hopes to continue living her life out of the public eye after the release of the documentary.
A memorial in Romulus, Michigan will be held Thursday, on the 25th anniversary of the crash.
Sole Survivor is expected to be released next month.
With files from NBC News
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