Sioux City History & Culture by Bicycle Part 5: Flight 232 Memorial

In 1989 Sioux City had a tragedy occur at the airport. The crash of United Flight 232. The plane lost it's primary hydraulic system & it's secondary back up. The aircraft was very hard to control. The flight crew was given a choice of either trying to land at Sioux City or try & make it to Minneapolis. They decided on Sioux City. What set this flight apart from most others is though people died in the crash, because of the flight crews heroics at keeping the plane under control until when that became impossible & nothing more could be done & it was left to GOD to decide, more people lived then died in the crash. Of course another thing that helped more people survive then die in the tragedy was the cooperation of those that helped on the ground after the plane crahsed. Several agency's responded. The Iowa Air National Guard, local, county & state emergency crews from across the area, not to mention both hospitals trauma centers.

The little boy shown being carried by the Iowa Air National Guardsman recently graduated college. I had the pleasure of meeting the Air National Guardsman once.

In 1994 the memorial was built & dedicated. It is next to the Anderson Dance Pavillion on the Sioux City Riverfront.

Though this was a tragedy I think it is important to honor those who helped save countless lives that fateful day & to remember those who GOD decided was their time to come home to him.