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Speaker 1: Jersey and Amanda jam Nation.

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Speaker 2: Have you ever wondered what did it be like to

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Speaker 2: survive a plane crash? Well, in May nineteen seventy, George Burke,

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Speaker 2: air Force officer, took to the skies in a small

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Speaker 2: aircraft along with thirteen others. Just minutes after take off,

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Speaker 2: the plane suffered explosive decompression, sending the aircraft hurtling back

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Speaker 2: to the ground.

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Speaker 1: Everyone except George died.

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Speaker 2: George was the sole survivor, and here we are, over

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Speaker 2: fifty years later, he's.

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Speaker 1: Still here to tell his story. Hello, George Burke, how

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Speaker 1: are you.

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Speaker 3: Good? Ay? Mates? I guess it's too early to put

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Speaker 3: a ship on the barbie.

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Speaker 4: It's never too early to do that, George, you've established

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Speaker 4: all that. So mate, what's it like? What's it like

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Speaker 4: to be in a plane crash?

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Speaker 3: Yeah?

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Speaker 1: What happened that day? Take us back to it?

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Speaker 3: Well, I'll start, I'll be quick. A lot of things

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Speaker 3: happen inside your playing. We were find out we were

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Speaker 3: at twenty nine hundred feet on clim out. First thing

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Speaker 3: I noticed was a window cracked, and then a few

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Speaker 3: seconds later the airplane had what they called rapid decompression.

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Speaker 3: All the windows were blown out. I glanced quickly to

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Speaker 3: my left and then to my right. We were seated.

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Speaker 3: I was seated in the front apartment with two of

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Speaker 3: my NCOs. The props were windmilling, flames were lapping over

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Speaker 3: and under the engine calling. I unbuckled my seat belt.

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Speaker 3: With the airplane going down, pitching, yawing, and rolling, I

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Speaker 3: stood up and did one hundred and eighty degree turn,

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Speaker 3: grabbed a hold of structural bulkhead doorway, looking down into

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Speaker 3: the cockpit, the nose was split open, the top part

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Speaker 3: of the canopy was flapping. The incipitation with panel was

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Speaker 3: back of my boss's lap. It was flying his copilot.

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Speaker 3: The left side of the cockpit was completely gone, was open,

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Speaker 3: and although I do not don't, just remember seeing Captain

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Speaker 3: Robinson Robbie our pile at his head. He was his

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Speaker 3: head was off at his shoulders. He's decapitated. I sat

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Speaker 3: back down on my seat, buckled my seat belt in

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Speaker 3: the survival position as best they could. Put something in

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Speaker 3: my lap, perhaps a cushion had blown free, and the

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Speaker 3: last conscious thought I remember having was I my insurance

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Speaker 3: pauses are intact. I remember. The impact was the bake

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Speaker 3: breaking and bending and shearing metal I was thrust violently

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Speaker 3: back against the bulkhead. We had airline type seats in

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Speaker 3: the aircraft was an air Force twenty nine convert. And

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Speaker 3: then when airplane stopped moving my trunk, my face was

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Speaker 3: slammed forward on the table in front of us, and

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Speaker 3: it turned out it broke my nose. And then I

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Speaker 3: holldered at one of the guys to me, let's come on, Fred,

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Speaker 3: Let's get the hell out of here. I unbookomed, my

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Speaker 3: sweet belt, stood up three quarter standing position, pivot towards

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Speaker 3: the aisle. The next thing I felt was large like

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Speaker 3: buckets of scalding hot water being thrown on me. It

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Speaker 3: was what people told me later what's called a flashover.

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Speaker 3: Then everything went black and then I don't know how long,

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Speaker 3: it was only just a minute or two. I opened

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Speaker 3: my eyes outside the air playing face down. I didn't

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Speaker 3: I don't recall doing it, but I told those around

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Speaker 3: me for many weeks when I was in the ICY.

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Speaker 3: I was in the ICY at brook Brook Army Medical

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Speaker 3: Center for three months, not expected to live in eighteen

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Speaker 3: months in the hospital, when I was still somewhat alert

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Speaker 3: for the first seven to ten days, one of the

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Speaker 3: things I told the rescuers and my hospital staff at

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Speaker 3: the burnings that I dug one way out through a

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Speaker 3: crack in the fuselage of the airplane. I don't remember

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Speaker 3: doing that. I don't know how long I lay there.

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Speaker 3: I rolled over my back. I looked at my hands

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Speaker 3: or hands, my hands with yarred black. The skin on

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Speaker 3: my left hand, I was left hand. It was hanging

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Speaker 3: like a glove of softball sized glove of skin. I

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Speaker 3: looked at my shoes, my lace. My shoes were still on,

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Speaker 3: which in Laer my feet would have been burned off.

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Speaker 3: The laces in my left shoe were gone, which I

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Speaker 3: found rather unusual. Yeah, I thought, I thought I heard

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Speaker 3: somebody crying for help. I rolled back on my stomach,

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Speaker 3: elbows and knees, called maybe ten yards to the airplane,

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Speaker 3: and hurt enough a muffled explosion, hissing noise, and another explosion.

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Speaker 3: I felt a great deal of eating my face and

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Speaker 3: after a few curse words, there's nobody alive in that

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Speaker 3: sob I did one hundred and eighty degree turn and

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Speaker 3: crawled over what turned crawled back to where I opened

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Speaker 3: my eyes over turned out what turned out to be

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Speaker 3: parts of airplane and eucalyptus trees.

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Speaker 4: And you are the soul survivor of this.

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Speaker 1: That's extraordinary. How many two you were risky?

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Speaker 3: Well, no one knew that it was It was just

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Speaker 3: literally minutes, but no one knew that I was found.

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Speaker 3: They found the Actually the first people on the scene

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Speaker 3: were volunteer of firefighters from Shellville, California, which is nearby

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Speaker 3: near Nevado. They found me about forty minutes later down

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Speaker 3: the pasture underneath some trees, where I managed to walk.

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Speaker 3: But the story that came about which was true. A

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Speaker 3: rancher named John Davio and his wife managed the two

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Speaker 3: thousand anco cattle ranch in Shellville, and every Monday morning

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Speaker 3: for twenty five years, he set out in his four

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Speaker 3: over drive red pickup truck to check the area for

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Speaker 3: dead and stray cattle. Monday morning, May fourth, nineteen seventy

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Speaker 3: the weather was so bad, rain clouds, fog. He cut

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Speaker 3: short his trip and come down through a ravine. And

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Speaker 3: when I saw him for the first time in nineteen

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Speaker 3: seventy four, we went back up to the crash site.

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Speaker 3: He told me, Captain, all the years had been on

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Speaker 3: that ranch, I'd never been through that ravine before. He

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Speaker 3: was headed back down to the ranch, smelled smoke. What

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Speaker 3: are the neighbors doing burning in a day like today?

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Speaker 1: And he found you.

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Speaker 3: That's what it was.

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Speaker 4: He found So you're like a survivor out of all that.

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Speaker 1: It was destiny.

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Speaker 4: It was destiny that you would be found.

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Speaker 1: George.

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Speaker 2: One of the things that people ask is if you

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Speaker 2: have a near death experience like that, does it change you?

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Speaker 1: Do you live every day differently because of it?

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Speaker 3: That's a good every day's an adventure and every meal

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Speaker 3: is a banquet.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's something to live by. George, that is

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Speaker 4: something well, that is just an amazing dry.

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Speaker 1: Thank you for giving us an insight into that.

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Speaker 4: The fact that today in Australia, September eleven, today where

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Speaker 4: and when we look at what went terrible all those

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Speaker 4: years ago for you to come out of that, George,

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Speaker 4: thank you for sharing your story.

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Speaker 3: Well, thank you for inviting me and I if I

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Speaker 3: could take a moment. When I was in Vietnam a

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Speaker 3: sixty seven sixty eight, I met a lot of Australian blokes.

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Speaker 3: There's any Australian veterans that are popping having a few

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Speaker 3: pints yet, I wish him well, tell them I wish

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Speaker 3: for me is welcome home. And I want to thank

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Speaker 3: both of you for were inviting me, and and Mom

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Speaker 3: and Joeanne and God bless you all.

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Speaker 1: George, You're lovely and thank.

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Speaker 4: You, thank you, thank you for thinking about its. Wow,

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Speaker 4: what an extreme, extraordinary time.

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Speaker 1: I have goosebumps. What a story,