After an Air Force jet crashed on Highland Avenue, just missing Mansfeld Junior High School, there were many stories of people who tried to help.
In one case, a good samaritan's lost purse led her friends to believe she was in critical condition at the hospital.
From the Arizona Daily Star, Friday, Oct. 27, 1978:
Rush to give aid at the scene makes unhurt nurse a 'victim'
By JOHN S. LONG
The Arizona Daily Star
When Janet Roxie Ireland walked into her house yesterday afternoon, her roommates almost fainted. When they recovered, they told her she looked good for someone who was 80 percent burned.
A case of mistaken identity had led to Ireland's being listed in critical condition at University Hospital as a result of yesterday's Air Force jet fighter crash.
"When I heard it, I was just relieved that I'm still here," said Ireland, who watched the plane crash and was one of the first people at the scene.
"I was coming home from class, and I looked up and heard an explosion and saw the plane come down and the upper part of it break up and crash in the street. Part of the plane hit the car, and pieces flew everywhere."
A registered nurse, Ireland said she raced down the street to see if she could help. She saw a man on the street who looked as if he were dead, and rolled him over and took his pulse.
"He was alive, and I stayed with him while someone else went over to the burning car and pulled a woman lying near it over by us. The car was in flames from the start, and no one could get near enough to it to pull the person in it out," said Ireland.
The woman had either been walking down the street or was thrown from the car, Ireland said, but was so badly burned that her sex could not be determined until much of her burning and smoldering clothing was cut off her. She was later tentatively identified as Clarissa Felix of ---- E. Eighth St.
A policeman then came by and told people to move away because of the possibility of live ammunition from the plane exploding.
"At the time, I didn't think of the consequences (of the ammunition). I was with a man who needed my care. What could I do but stay?" said Ireland.
The next thing she knew, ambulances were taking away the injured and, along with the burned woman, Ireland's purse which she had thrown haphazardly to one side nearby and was next to the woman. It wasn't until Ireland had left the crash site for home a block away that she realized she had lost it.
But at the hospital, the woman who had been burned was mistakenly identified as Ireland because Ireland's purse was with her, and early news reports of the crash listed the nurse as one of its victims.
After she realized her purse was missing, Ireland said, "I went back and asked a policeman what happened to it and was told it probably went with the ambulance. So I went and called Kino Hospital and said if they bring someone there and check the purse to ignore the blood type card I had; it was mine.
"I went to Kino a little later to pick up the purse, but they said it must have gone to St. Mary's, so I called there and was told no one had it. By then, I thought maybe someone had ripped it off or it was misplaced somewhere along the line," said the 26-year-old nurse and part-time university student, who finally discovered that her purse was in the emergency room of University Hospital.
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Just as Janet Ireland ran to help victims, so did others who happened to be nearby. From the Star of the same date:
He acted fast, pulling 2 from burning van
By JON KAMMAN
The Arizona Daily Star
"I didn't really think about it — I just did it."
What Joe Azua "just did" was quite possibly save the lives of a Tucson woman and her invalid daughter. Certainly, he spared them from worse burns than they did suffer.
They were in the wrong place at the wrong time when an Air Force jet plummeted to earth yesterday, instantly raining pieces of the aircraft and a wall of fire onto the back of their passenger van.
Azua's fate, though, was to be in a safer place mere paces from where their auto came to rest — and to have the presence of mind to act.
"I heard somebody screaming and knew I had to do something," said Azua, of --- N. Second St.
One moment, the 29-year-old filling-station attendant was sitting quietly in the living room of a friend's apartment at --- N. Highland Ave., minding her 3-month-old daughter while she was busy at a laundromat. The next few moments thrust him into heroism.
"I heard two explosions," Azua recalled, "and went to the window. There were flames all over the place.
"Then I heard screams, so I just ran out to the van and pulled two girls out. I didn't even stop to put my shoes on . . . I just ran," Azua said.
"There wasn't anybody else out there yet — it was only about five seconds after the explosion. The flames and smoke were so bad you couldn't see the other side of the street."
Azua first saw a woman in the back seat of the van apparently struggling to open the door. He yanked it open and, wrapping his arms under the woman's, pulled her to the street.
"I pulled her 15 or 20 feet and sat her down. She said, 'All of a sudden the can was just rolling (pushed down the street when hit from behind by a section of the aircraft) and we were on fire.'" The vehicle stopped alongf the curb of Highland about 25 yards from the apartment's back door.
"She got up and started going back to the van, and I told her to go into that white house over there," Azua said, pointing to a residence even closer to the conflagration than was the apartment of his friend, Susan Richardson, 22.
"I went back to see if anyone else was in the van and saw another person in the back seat — I think she had been lying on her back — so I pulled her out, too," Azua said. By that time, another girl came up and helped him get her out.
"There were crutches in the van, and she told me, 'I can't walk; I'm crippled,' so I carried her into the house.
"Both the them were burned around here," Azua said, motioning along the back and one side of his body.
Somehow Azua managed to save the two without being burned.
He said the two weeks of safety and rescue training he completed several years ago before going to work in a New Mexico uranium mine might have given him confidence to perform the rescue.
Azua was under the impression until late in the day that both women were college students, but he later learned that they are Alice Minder, 48, and her 18-year-old daughter, Joan, whose inability to walk stems from a birth defect.
The girl who helped rescue Joan was her sister, Erin, 12, who was approaching the vehicle on her way home to lunch from Mansfeld Junior High School. The family resides at --- N. Vine Ave.
The two burn victims were reported in stable condition last night at St. Mary's Hospital's burn center.
Just as he accepted the emergency without thought for himself, Azua returned to his everyday life a few hours later without fanfare.
He showed up for work at 3 p.m., about an hour late, at Baca's Union 76 Service, 695 W. St. Mary's Road. And he didn't tell his boss why.
Young Erin Minder was a hero as well, possibly saving her sister's life. From the star of the same date:
12-year-old witness
Car came out of smoke with mother, sister in it
The school bell rang about 12:15 and 12-year-old Erin Minder started walking to her home at --- N. Vine Ave., for lunch. It was only about a block from school.
"I heard a big boom," she said later in the day. "I looked up and saw something fall. Then the plane crashed."
For the next few moments Erin stared in terrified fascination. "I was really scared," she said. She could not see anything in the smoke. Then something emerged.
"I saw a car come out of the smoke and stop. It was on fire."
It was the Minder family's green Chevrolet, and her mother and her sister were inside. As a man ran over to pull her mother out of the burning car, Erin too leaped into action, pulling her crippled sister out.
"I ran over and opened the door and grabbed her and put her on the pavement," she said.
Erin's mother, Alice Minder, had just picked up Joan, 18, at Tucson High School and was driving south on Highland Avenue. They probably would have seen Erin, picked her up, and driven home.
Somehow, Erin escaped getting burned, but she did have cuts and bruises. Her mother and her sister were at St. Mary's Hospital last night in stable condition.
Meanwhile, nine hours after the crash, the identities of the woman who died and the woman who was burned over 90 percent of her body remained in doubt. University Hospital officials said they know the two are sisters, but were not sure which one died.
Relatives of Leticia Humphrey and Clarissa Felix were unable to identify the woman believed to be Felix, who was in the intensive care unit with third-degree burns over 90 percent of her body.
An imprint of the teeth of the dead woman was taken so it could be compared with dental records.
A priest, a nun and about 40 friends of the family gathered in the emergency room to give the family moral support.
According to friends, the two women were born in Mexico and attended high school at Suffolk Hills Catholic High School here, and both were enrolled at the University of Arizona this semester.
The pilot was considered a hero as well. He did his best to keep the plane from crashing into the school and homes. From the same edition of the Star:
Award due for staying with plane
By ALLEN CARRIER
and JOHN RAWLINSON
The Arizona Daily Star
U.S. Air Force Capt. Fredrick L. Ashler will be recommended for an award for his efforts to keep his jet fighter from striking a school and homes, Brig. Gen. Robert E. Kelley, commander of Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, said yesterday.
"He did a super job," Kelley said of the pilot's attempt to keep the plane from striking Mansfeld Junior High School and nearby homes.
Asked if he thought Ashler was a hero, the general said, "It's hard to say, but he did everything humanly possible."
Kelley said the pilot tried to aim the failing craft for a landing in an empty University of Ariznoa football practice field at East Seventh Street and Highland Avenue. The plane just missed it.
"He stayed with the aircraft longer than some might have thought possible," Kelley said. "We teach our pilots to do that."
Kelley said when a pilot bails out of a jet at 200 feet above the ground as Ashler did, "your chances of being alive are slim." Ashler suffered only a scraped ankle in the fall.
Ashler, the general said, tried everything he was supposed to try when the jet encountered an engine compression stall. Kelley said the pilot raised the flaps on the plane and the landing gear to gain more altitude and tried to glide to the D-M landing strip about four miles from the crash site, but he couldn't make it.
When the plane rolled over at 200 feet above the ground near the crash site, the controls were probably gone, the general said.
"He stayed with the aircraft until he had no further control of it." the general said.
From the time the jet developed engine trouble about eight miles from the landing strip, the pilot had only one minute to try to correct the situation, according to Kelley.
Kelley said last night that he didn't know what type of award Ashler would be recommended for, but said he felt he deserved some recognition for trying successfully to keep his jet from hitting the school and houses.
Kelley said U.S. Air Force lawyers were at the crash scene yesterday, providing government claim forms to the victims of the crash. He said the Air Force will offer immediate aid to the victims. "No question about it," he added.
It's sad to note that even when the pilot did his best, there were casualties, but once the engines failed, the pilot was left with the job of minimizing the damage.
There was later a second death attributed to the crash, the woman who had been burned over 90 percent of her body and who was the sister of the first person who died.
The crash renewed discussion about the safety of Air Force jets flying over populated areas.
Such discussions continue today along with those of the noise left in the wake of the aircraft flying overhead. Some call it the sound of freedom, while other call it an annoyance and dangerous. As long as there is an Air Force base in Tucson, the debate will continue. But as many say, there are other dangers all around us.
