My first animation with country balls :D but it's low effort. On August 16, 1987, a McDonnell Douglas MD-82, operating as Northwest Airlines Flight 255, crashed shortly after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport, about 8:46 pm EDT (00:46 UTC August 17), resulting in the deaths of all six crew members and 148 of the 149 passengers, along with two people on the ground. The sole survivor was a 4-year-old girl who sustained serious injuries. It was the second-deadliest aviation accident at the time in the United States.[3][4] It is also the deadliest aviation accident to have a sole survivor,[5][a] the deadliest aircraft accident in the history of the state of Michigan,[6] and the worst crash in the history of Northwest Airlines.
Of the 149 passengers aboard, 21 were children, the youngest being six months old. The sole survivor of the crash was Cecelia Cichan,[11] a four-year-old girl from Tempe, Arizona, who was returning home alongside her mother, Paula, father, Michael, and a six-year-old brother, David, after visiting relatives in Pennsylvania.[12][13] Romulus firemen found Cichan still belted in her seat, which was faced down. She was found several feet from the bodies of her family.[14][15] Believing that no one on the aircraft could have survived, officials at first announced that Cichan was an automobile passenger.[12] She sustained third-degree burns and fractures to her skull, collarbone, and left leg.[1]: 26 After the accident, Cichan moved to live with her maternal aunt and uncle in Birmingham, Alabama. She spoke to the media about her experience for the first time in 2011.[16][17] In a 2022 interview for WDIV-TV marking 35 years since the crash, John Thiede, now a captain at the Romulus Fire Department, noted his friendship with Cichan since the mid-2000s when they made contact, and attended Cichan's 2006 wedding.[18]
