Sunday, December 04, 2011

Sole survivor of '45 Air Show crash thankful to be alive.

Woman, now 66, only survivor of 1945 Dayton Air Show crash.

Nina Roehm Hampton’s first outing in the world very well could have turned out to be her last.

She was only five weeks old on May 27, 1945, when her parents, Wesley and Susan Roehm, took the family out to Wright Field for an air show and war loan rally that drew 70,000 spectators.

Around 4 p.m., in the show’s closing hour, an experimental plane crashed near the Roehms’ car, spilling burning oil fuel over the vehicle. “Human torches,” a local newspaper headline blared.

In the end, Nina was the only one who survived the fiery crash that killed the pilot and four people on the ground — the only civilian deaths in Dayton air show history. It was a tragedy that forever changed air show safety in the United States — and forever changed the lives of three families.

Little Nina Lee owed her life to the quick thinking of close family friend Kathleen Eyre. According to family accounts, the 22-year-old Eyre tossed the newborn out of the car window before she too became engulfed in flames. Only Nina’s hands were burned.

Read more and photos: http://www.daytondailynews.com

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