Publication: Press Date: 31 Jan 2004 Page: E 5

Headline: These parents inspire

Author: BOWRON Jane

Section: FEATURES Sub Section: ENTERTAINMENT

 

In a small country where any hero is heralded almost to death, the somewhat

overlooked courageous acts of Kiwi couple Kevin and Susan Campbell (featured

on Wednesday night's aeroplane disaster series, Mayday) seems a little odd.

If ever there was a real life story waiting for a motion picture to be made

from it, the gripping account of the 1989 United Airlines Flight 811

aeroplane disaster is it.

The story of the disaster and the devastating effects of a defective luggage

door lock that blew a hole in 811, sucking out five rows of seats into the

all-too-thin air and killing nine passengers made terrifying and gripping

viewing. But the post-crash actions of the parents of Lee Campbell were

truly inspiring.

Among the missing presumed dead was Lee Campbell, on his way home from Los

Angeles to New Zealand, destination Auckland. With the greatest of composure

his mother, Susan, recounted the evening she went to bed looking forward to

seeing her son the next day, but woke during the night to see Lee standing

by her bedside smiling down at her. The following day when the Campbells

heard the first reports of the disaster on the radio Susan Campbell knew her

son was dead.

How the Campbells coped with their grief, resolving tacitly to find out what

happened to Lee on Flight 811, gave new meaning to the words dogged and

determined.

Immediately they flew to the scene of the crime to see where Lee was seated

and began their own painstaking investigation. Invited to a preliminary

hearing by the National Transportation Safety Board, the Campbells were

allowed to take away only press releases.

But after officials left the meeting room, the couple quietly recounted how,

without saying a word to each other and moving with the speed of the Artful

Dodger, they uplifted boxes of papers sitting near the top table.

As they made their swift exit clutching the vital and withheld information,

officials swept back through an adjacent door, missing the action.

Such gutsy rebellion against a powerful foreign authority displayed by two

unassuming middleclass Kiwis made one want to cheer. For any viewer with

qualms about such a brazen show of anarchy, an aviation lawyer and survivor

of 811 supported their action. He was aboard to get away from the grim

scenario of accidents and crashes, and explained the conflicting role of the

NTSB: to both promote the aviation industry and investigate safety.

The NTSB tried to blame ramp attendants and talked with ear-grating jargon

about the doors suffering from some "sort of abuse".

The Campbells bought a car and criss- crossed America, visiting others

involved in the aviation disaster. As Susan Campbell reeled off the names of

locations visited, including Seattle, Washington, Kentucky, Miami, San Diego

and San Francisco, the enormity of their task hit home.

Kevin Campbell, a trained engineer, knocked up a copy of the lock found on

Boeing 747 planes and demonstrated with shattering logic why the accident

happened on 811 and would continue to happen to other planes still flying.

This display of DIY-ism by a griefstricken but utterly focused parent made

one again cheer for the Kiwi battler taking on the big boy corporate and the

air "safety" board.

It would be churlish not to mention the heroic actions of the captain who

managed to fly his badly damaged plane and land it with great skill on the

tarmac at Honolulu airport. It was the captain's critical directive for

passengers to keep their seat belts on during mild turbulence that saved the

lives of the remaining souls on board.

But it was the Campbells whom air passengers today must thank for the

changes made to the critically flawed design of doors and locks, thus saving

thousands of lives.

Others would have drowned under a litany of lies, sunk into a depression and

been unable to function, let alone conduct the kind of investigation that

would leave experienced sleuths gasping.

They stuck together, and although their dignified heroism has been lost to

the daily inky smudge of yesterday's news, perhaps their inspiring story

retold in dramatic and vivid documentary form can go someway toward giving

them their dues.