JAPAN AIRLINES CRASH CHANGED MY LIFE
43 years after crash, a journalist recounts the fateful day and how he reconnected with the 2-year-old girl he drove to the hospital from the crash site
IT was a balmy Wednesday evening. Dark clouds had been hovering since lunchtime. Nothing eventful was happening on Sept 27, 1977. Thunder and lightning lit up the skies as I boarded the bus and headed to Balai Berita where I was a sports stringer for The Malay Mail, which was then part of the New Straits Times Press Group.
I got into the building just before the downpour, and started banging away on the typewriter about an interview I did the previous day. Then from across the room, a shout thundered.
“There has been a plane crash and I need volunteers,” said the late M.A. Razman, who was chief reporter for The Malay Mail. I was the only soul around besides the people at the NST subs desk. The news reporters were not back yet from their assignments and no sports reporter was around.
The late Jeffrey Ramayah, who was with the NST crime desk, had taken one of the two dedicated cars fitted with a two-way radio for the editorial department. He was already heading to Subang airport near where the crash was.
While waiting for cameraman Soong Hon Sin, news filtered in that a Douglas DC-8 airliner, Japan Airlines Flight 715, had crashed in Elmina Estate.
Growing up in the estate, I had some inkling of where it was. In heavy rain, I managed to navigate Soong to the area via the Subang airport road to Sungai Buloh.
We were among the first news crews on the scene. The police had cordoned off the crash site on a hill, but we managed to get near enough to smell the gasoline which spilled from the plane.
Then Selangor police deputy CPO, the late Kassim Ali, arrived at the scene and gave me the updates. Ambulances were ferrying the injured and police Land Rovers were carrying the dead.
It was well after midnight that I got the story and details of casualties and the rescue efforts. I remember thinking that I had all the time to file the stories, as The Malay Mail was then an afternoon paper and off stone time was at 8am.
Kassim then beckoned for me to follow him on the trek up the hill when a policeman picked up a baby. Kassim then asked me if I had a car and could take the baby to the hospital. I knew the NST car was around and agreed.
She was almost bare-bodied. I took off my shirt, wrapped her up and carried her in my arms to the car.
The drive to University Hospital was uneventful except for the bosses who called over the twoway radio and wanted me back at the office. NST editors wanted details from me to incorporate into their main story, which was to be the front-page lead.
I handed over the little girl to the emergency department and returned to the office.
There were questions, and as I was explaining the reasons for the delay, executive editor the late David Tambyah’s voice boomed from nowhere.
“Have you got photos? Give me 10 paragraphs. Pronto. I need it for page one.”
Those who worked with him will remember him as a diehard newsman whose adrenaline pumped when big stories broke.
The photo department managed to provide a grainy black and white photograph of me carrying the girl.
That little girl’s name is Maria Burkhart, who was then 2-yearsold. She was travelling home from the United States with her parents on that fateful plane.
Her dad died, and because of the impact of the crash, mother and daughter were thrown in different directions.
They were reunited at the hospital the following day, where I met them briefly at the children’s ward.
I bought her a teddy bear. She was dazed and on prompting, said: “Thank you, uncle.”
When I returned to the office later in the day, there was a letter congratulating me from the late Noordin Sopiee, who was then NST group editor. With it was a RM100 voucher for my efforts.
My visit to the hospital made the front page of the NST.
I vividly remember what a senior journalist told me: “We journalists write the news. We do not make the news.”
It may have been said with good intentions, but it was not I who sought to be in the news, but a twist of events.
But the best news was that Noordin interviewed me shortly after that and offered me a job at The Malay Mail, not on the sports desk, but on the news desk, and he remarked: “You will be more useful there.”
Over the years, I had tried to contact Maria through the US Embassy in Kuala Lumpur and Japan Airlines, and even searched genealogy websites. I drew a blank.
Just before the Movement Control Order was imposed on March 18, Kini Academy, where I teach journalism part-time, forwarded me a one-paragraph email.
It read: “My name is Maria Briley (formerly Burkhart). I was the youngest survivor of a JAL plane crash in Kuala Lumpur on Sept 27, 1977. Mr Nadeswaran carried me and wrote an article on myself and the crash. He may contact me if he likes, by replying to this email. I have attached a photo of his article. Please let him know I would be interested in speaking with him.”
This was a blast from the past, some 43 years later, coming into contact with someone I had met at a hospital as a little girl and exchanged only a few words with.
The response to the email was not instantaneous.
I procrastinated — the lockdown had its effects. Then, one evening, I replied, giving some details of myself and inquiring about her and her family.
What made you look for me after all these years, I asked.
Enclosing The Malay Mail article, she wrote: “Here is what started my search to thank you!” Wow! She kept it all these years! The emails continued with the exchange of family photographs and personal details.
“I am not sure exactly how long we stayed in Malaysia after the crash. It seems like we returned to the US shortly after, maybe less than a year after. I remember starting preschool in California,” she wrote.
Shortly after returning to the US after the crash, both mother and daughter moved from California to the Lake Tahoe area in Nevada.
“My mother had another child at this time, my brother, who is eight years younger than me. I graduated from Incline High School and moved to Oregon sometime after graduation. My nursing degree is from Oregon Health & Science University,” she wrote.
Maria left Oregon for Colorado to see what it was like in the late 90s, which was where she met her now ex-husband, whom she married in 2001.
“My son, Jonah, was born in 2001.”
Maria said when Covid-19 broke out in the US, she was working at a behavioural health treatment clinic.
“So, yes, I consider myself working on the frontlines.”
Then, the Black Lives Matter protests started in Portland, Oregon, in August. Portland surfaced as a flashpoint in the country’s seething culture wars.
Some right-wing protesters and supporters of President Donald Trump — part of a caravan of hundreds, many driving pickup trucks adorned with the president’s campaign flags — diverted from the group’s planned route and headed through the city’s downtown. The Trump supporters were met by counter protesters, violent clashes ensued, and one man, 39-year-old Aaron Danielson, died from a gunshot wound.
Maria wrote: “I stayed away from the riots. I did not treat anyone injured in them. The so-called street medics at riots are primarily informally trained volunteers, from what I understand. I have heard some are nurses and/or other medical professionals, but I don’t know how accurate that information is.”
In her latest e-mail, she wrote: “I can’t think of anything else outstanding I can tell you about my life. It has been challenging growing up and now helping my mother, as well as not having a father. It is interesting living in the Pacific Northwest during these heated times.”
Now between jobs, her riposte read: “Thank you, Nades, for your interest in how I have fared! I will always appreciate you! Please never hesitate to contact me. I will be in touch.”
Today, 43 years ago, this episode changed the course of my life and career. If I had not volunteered to that clarion call from Razman, my life would have been different.
It is not worth speculating, but perhaps I would have gone on a different career path if not for this fateful day — Sept 27,1977.