“Knowing we were the first flight from DCA to come to Dallas, I was just grateful we made it safely,” said Felicia Neal.
DALLAS — Felicia Neal’s eyes welled up with tears as she boarded the first Dallas-bound non-stop on Southwest Airlines from Reagan National in Washington, D.C. Thursday afternoon.
And as the 737 lifted off the ground, she says she could see the wreckage and the rescuers in the Potomac River.
“It’s pretty somber,” she said of being on one of the first flights out of D.C. after the Wednesday night mid-air collision between an American Airlines jet and an Army Blackhawk helicopter.
“I was very teary-eyed,” she said. “It’s cold. And you know that there’s people there,” she said of the crash site where 67 souls lost their lives.
Stacey Cochran and a group of educators were in D.C. for a Head Start conference. They decided to take a one-hour Uber ride to fly out of Baltimore instead, also arriving at Love Field Thursday afternoon.
“It’s scary, right,” Cochran said. “We had to get home from D.C. somehow. But it’s scary to get back up into the sky after this has happened.”
Jeryl and Martin Johnston from Granbury were also on the Reagan National to Love Field flight. But they say they couldn’t dwell on the accident as they boarded their flight home.
“Not worried about flying. It’s still the safest way to go,” Martin Johnston said.
“I still feel like it’s safer than a car,” his wife Jeryl added.
“The public has come to legitimately understand that this is the safest form of transportation,” aviation expert John Nance told ABC News. He points out that there are roughly 100,000 commercial flights every day across the globe without any major problems.
But the D.C. crash does concern him.
“To have this actually happen right in our own backyard, right in the nation’s capital, is a wakeup call that aviation is a very delicately balanced machine,” Nance said. “And we’ve learned a lot about how to keep that balance. Mid-air collisions are one of the things that we fear.”
Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins flew home from Washington, D.C. Thursday night as well on American Airlines to DFW Airport. He said everyone on board was somber and quiet and respectful.
“It was not completely normal,” Jenkins said of the atmosphere inside Reagan National. “People were quieter. But you know kind of a somber attitude with the people in the airport. It just makes you thankful that most of these things are very safe and makes you sad, for those that are affected.”
And Felicia Neal says she shed another tear or two again when her plane touched down at Love Field.
“Knowing we were the first flight from DCA to come to Dallas, I was just grateful we made it safely,” she said.
From the cold Potomac to Dallas, the investigation begins to find the cause and to make it feel safe again.
PHOTOS: Who are the victims of the D.C. helicopter-plane crash?
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