14-Year-Old Leads Escape from Burning Plane

When a plane crashed in the Congo before takeoff last week, it caught fire with passengers still on board. But a 14-year-old girl, April Mosier, led the way to safety.

By Kathryn Hawkins. Posted on April 22 2008

Last Wednesday, disaster struck in Goma, Congo, when a jetliner attempting to take off smashed through a fence, and into a busy market area just outside of the airport. Moments later, the plane was on fire –and the survivors on board had no way to exit the aircraft.

Luckily, April Mosier was on board. As soon as the flames began to spread, April ran to the front of the plane, where she discovered a crack too small to squeeze through. “Let’s open this crack; otherwise we’re going to die,” she told a man standing next to her.

Together, they worked to break open the crack to a gap wide enough to squeeze through – a tough job for a 96-pound girl, but with the man’s help, the 14-year-old managed to open an escape route from the plane, saving the lives of dozens of survivors who would have died in the fire –including her parents and three-year old adopted brother, whom she had lost in the rush of people when the plane collided with the marketplace.

April’s parents escaped through the hole she’d created, not knowing what she’d done –or even whether their daughter was still alive. “The plane landed on top of the market, the people you are seeing are smashed or burning,” her father, Barry Mosier, told The Minnesota Star Tribune. “I didn’t want to leave without my daughter, but we needed to go.”

But half an hour later, they were escorted to the hospital, where they were shocked to find April, alive and unharmed.

“When we saw each other, she just burst into tears,” said Barry. “My daughter thought we were dead. ... We couldn’t believe that the four of us from one family were walking away alive.”

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