For emergency workers at the Allegheny Airlines Flight 736 crash on Dec. 24, 1968, it was a long, cold, night of exhaustion. For survivors who included young Kristen King, it was a long, cold night of thankfulness.

The 50th anniversary of the Allegheny Airlines Convair 580 passenger plane crash that killed 20 of the 47 passengers bound for Bradford Regional Airport has prompted a survivor and a few area residents, including Bradford Publishing Company publisher, John Satterwhite, to share memories that haven’t faded over the past half-century.

The tragic accident was compounded, and placed the Bradford area on the national map, when a second horrific accident occurred a couple of weeks later with Allegheny Airlines Flight 737. That passenger plane, also destined for Bradford Regional Airport, crashed at Pine Acres Golf Course Jan. 6, 1969, taking the lives of 11 people.

An emergency worker who remembered the Christmas Eve accident in 1968 was Dick Brown of Cyclone. He and his family had just left his parents home when he heard a radio report that an Allegheny Airlines plane had crashed in a wooded area midway between the village of Kushequa and the Kinzua Bridge. Reports stated the twin-engine airplane had skidded for 100 yards before flipping onto its back and splitting open. Later, “dazed survivors immediately began abandoning the wreckage and pulling other living persons from the broken fuselage.”

Reports also stated that a couple of survivors lit a fire nearby using magazines, newspapers and debris from the wreckage to stay warm in bitter cold temperatures and mark their position in the remote terrain.

For Brown, who was a member of the Hilltop Fire Department, there was no hesitation in jumping on his snowmobile and running out with a neighbor to help.

“I had a cutter (tow sled) that I pulled behind my snowmobile and I hauled several dead people out of there” to the firehall,  he recalled. “I think there were (20) in the firehall that were killed.”

When asked if he was upset from the gruesome task at hand, Brown replied, “I didn’t have time” to be disturbed. That’s because he and the other volunteers on snowmobiles were needed to remove the deceased to make way for the rescue of survivors primarily located at the front of the plane.

“They got (the survivors) out of the front — there was an area part way back in the plane that was jammed and they could not get back in there. That was where most of the dead people were,” he remembered. “We cut a hole in the side of the plane with an ax to get people out. I had an ax with me under my seat in my snowmobile.”

Brown said the chopping was cumbersome as the airplane had approximately three skins of metal which covered tubing and wiring. Previous reports noted crowbars and chainsaws were also used by other emergency workers to cut through the sides of the plane. Acetylene torches weren’t used, however, for fear the airplane fuel would ignite or explode. A bulldozer brought into the site later was used to plow out the deep snow to help rescue vehicles access the wounded.

A doctor who was called to the crash site, Dr. Bruno Sicher of the Kane area, said his rescue of 17-year-old King on the flight is one that has bonded them in friendship in the past decade. King was so grateful for the help of the doctor and others that she sent them a plaque which is now displayed at Bradford Regional Airport.

At the crash site, Sicher (pronounced Sicker), along with others who included Joe Gezik, found King trapped in the wreckage with mud in her nose and mouth. Sadly, her father, whom she was traveling with to their home in Camp Hill, died in the accident. In one account of the girl’s rescue, an exhausted, injured King was able to muster the strength and thoughtfulness to tell her rescuers, “Merry Christmas” as they pulled her from the wreckage.

In previous correspondence with the Bradford Era, King had credited Sicher and Gezik with finding her and saving her.

“Joe found me first … he heard my muffled cries,” King had shared. “They didn’t know I was alive. He talked to me and kept telling me they were coming … and Dr. Sicher … pulled mud out of my mouth and nose … so I could breath.”

Sicher said he reconnected with King during the 40th anniversary of the event and the two have stayed in touch ever since.

“Every year (King) sends us beautiful Christmas stuff, beautiful orchids and she calls and says she’s very, very grateful,” Sicher said in referring to King’s regular contact with him and his wife, Rosemary. Sicher, 86, also noted that the incident is as fresh in his memory as the night it occurred.

“It was a terrible night, with terrible weather and a lot of snow,” he lamented.  “State police had called me and wanted me to go in … but we couldn’t find the place to begin with.”

Once at the site, which he accessed in his four-wheel-drive Jeep along the railroad grade, Sicher realized there was no one in charge.

“It was very worthwhile (to help) because there was no one in charge and there was mass confusion,” he remembered. “There no lights, it was bitter cold and no communication.The state police were there, but they were in hunting clothes because it was so cold.”

When contacted, King, who owns a hair salon in Salinas, Calif., said she, too, will never forget Sicher, Gezik and others who saved her.

“That was quite amazing how, after 40 years, we connected,” she said of Sicher. “That’s like a miracle … and a lot of it was from the internet.” She credits the internet website gendisasters.com for helping her find the accident and posting her contact information which eventually connected her with Sicher. She also stays in touch with Gezik as well as another survivor of the accident.

As with every year leading up to the 50th, King remembers the “tragic, tragic accident” that killed her father — and almost killed her.

“The fact that the only people who rescued us were town people from all over” was amazing, she said. “That’s what prompted me to do the plaque.”

King said she plans to send the Sichers flowers or orchids again this year to put on their table, and may call them, as well.

Also traveling near the crash site that evening on a snowmobile was John Satterwhite, who was 23 at the time and trying to locate his father, the late Henry Satterwhite, who had attempted to drive to the site.

John Satterwhite had been visiting his parents with his wife and child from their home in Pittsburgh and became concerned when he heard his 68-year-old father had traveled to the crash site. At the time, Henry Satterwhite was publisher of the Bradford Era and was chairman of the board of Allegheny Airlines.

“My mother had called me (at a friend’s) and said, ‘My God, a plane crashed at the airport and your father went out there.’”

John Satterwhite said he traveled to the area with his friend and ended up on a snowmobile trying to locate his father.

“When I got to (the area) where they were going down into the woods, they said ‘Oh (Henry Satterwhite) just went out, so we went back out.”

He said he found his father at the airport that night, safe and sound.

Those who played a vital role saving the survivors at Bradford Hospital included Dr. Edward Konwinski, now 94.

In a speech Konwinski wrote several years ago, he said, “It was a mass casualty situation, the likes of which Bradford never experienced before.

“Medical and surgical personnel, nursing staff and the hospital technicians rushed to the hospital from their holiday celebrations,” Konwinski recounted. “Tragically, 20 people lost their lives that night, but through dedicated emergency personnel at the crash site and staff at the Bradford Hospital, 27 survived.”

Konwinski also says of that night, “I was called in to the emergency room in the middle of the night, and stayed until well into Christmas morning. Many nurses and other physicians were called in, too. I took care of multiple fractures and lacerations.”

Konwinski said ironically one of the survivors, who was in an ophthalmology residency program, suffered a very serious eye injury.

“I had to call the chief of his residency medical program, who was flown in to perform eye surgery on him,” Konwinski recalled.

(Editor’s note: A story on the Jan. 6, 1969, Allegheny Airlines plane crash will be published on the 50th anniversary of the second accident.)