153 Dead in Pan Am Flight 759 Crash

KENNER, La. -- Carmella Gudan was pregnant and standing under her mother's carport on the afternoon of July 9, 1982. It was a rainy, gusty day in Kenner's Morningside subdivision.

Nearby, at the New Orleans International Airport, Capt. Kenny McCuller requested clearance for takeoff at about 4 p.m.
He was piloting PanAm Flight 759, bound for Las Vegas.

But the Boeing 727 went down 29 seconds after takeoff -- after reaching an altitude of only 95 to 150 feet.

"The general consensus was is that it crashed because of wind shear -- it's a down draft that pushed the flight down," former Kenner police chief Nick Congemi said.
Congemi was a lieutenant and on-scene commander in 1982. He also worked a second job as a PanAm ticket agent.

Flight 759 officially crashed at 4:09 p.m., killing 146 people onboard and eight people on the ground.

Congemi described the aftermath of the crash as a living hell.

"Flames all over -- people were yelling and screaming. Everything was out of control," he said.

Former Kenner fire chief D.J. Mumphrey was in charge of putting out the flames immediately after the crash.

http://www.wdsu.com/news/13646126/detail.html