Family Plane Crash: Ripping Through the Trees

In March 1974 the Godfreys are travelling to Aspen, Colorado for their annual skiing holiday. Brothers Andy and Mark, aged eight and eleven, are buzzing. But as their plane begins its descent over the snow-covered Rockies, the mood suddenly changes. The pilot appears to have made a critical miscalculation. All the family on board can do is hold on tight and pray… A Noiser podcast production. Hosted by John Hopkins. Written by Joe Viner | Produced by Ed Baranski | Assistant Producer: Luke Lonergan | Exec produced by Joel Duddell | Sound Supervisor: Matt Peaty | Sound design by Jacob Booth | Assembly edit by Rob Plummer | Compositions by Oliver Baines, Dorry Macaulay, Tom Pink | Mix & mastering: Ralph Tittley. For more on this story, see the documentary film '3 Days 2 Nights'. For ad-free listening, bonus material and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+. Click the subscription banner at the top of the feed to get started. Or go to noiser.com/subscriptions If you have an amazing survival story of your own that you’d like to put forward for the show, let us know. Drop us an email at [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I get so many headaches every month.

• 0:02Speaker 01

  It could be chronic migraine, fifteen or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more.

• 0:07Speaker 02

  Botox, onabotulinum toxin A, prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine. It's not for those who have fourteen or fewer headache days a month. Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away, as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS, Lou Gehrig's Disease, Myasthenia gravis or Lambert Eaton Syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects.

• 0:52Speaker 01

  Why wait? Ask your doctor. Visit botoxchronicmigraine.com or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more.

• 1:02Speaker 03

  The award-winning American Airlines Advantage program rewards more than travel. It takes your whole life to new heights. Earn miles when you fly, as well as with thousands of your favorite brands. And then redeem those miles for flights, upgrades and experiences worldwide. Advantage members also enjoy earlier boarding and free high-speed Wi-Fi in-flight. Join for free and start earning towards your next adventure at aa.com/spotify.

• 1:34John Hopkins?

  It's just after 3 PM on Saturday, March the 2nd, 1974. In the Colorado Rockies, about twelve miles south of the town of Glenwood Springs, skiers carve through freshly groomed snow of the sunlight mountain ski area.

• 1:51John Hopkins?

  Despite the promise of its name, Sunlight Mountain shivers today beneath dishwater gray clouds. The temperature hovers around freezing. A bitter wind rolls in, blowing fine, powdery spin drift across the slopes. Not that the weather has kept the visitors away. Schools have just broken up for spring break, and between dark ranks of spruce and aspen, hundreds weave their way downhill, squeezing in the last runs of the afternoon.

• 2:20John Hopkins?

  Overhead, chairlifts stretch across the slopes like power lines. Seated in one, their skis dangling over the edge are nine-year-old Danny Schaefer and his older brother David.

• 2:34John Hopkins?

  As the chairlift clanks along, ferrying its passengers up the mountain, Danny gazes out over the tops of the evergreens. The Schaefers arrived from Denver earlier today for a weekend ski trip, and so far it's been a blast. As they near the end of the lift, Danny hears something in the distance. A faint, high-pitched whine. He squints across the valley, and there, barely visible against the white mountainside rising behind it, is a tiny propeller plane.

• 3:04John Hopkins?

  Immediately, it's clear that something isn't right.

• 3:08John Hopkins?

  The plane shudders in the air, as if running on fumes. And what's it doing, flying so close to the mountain?

• 3:16John Hopkins?

  When the chairlift deposits them at the top of the run, Danny skis to a lookout spot and peers in the direction of the aircraft.

• 3:23Speaker 05

  He'd seen the plane while he was on the chairlift, so as he got off the chairlift, he quickly skied to a spot on the side of the run where he could have a better view of it.

• 3:33John Hopkins?

  Danny watches as the aircraft turns suddenly, its left wing dropping low as it attempts to fly over a snowy, forested ridge line. Then, as if in slow motion, the plane's wing appears to clip the top of a tree before it drops and vanishes behind the ridge in a cloud of smoke.

• 3:55John Hopkins?

  Danny stares, his pulse quickening. Hoping he wasn't the only witness, he turns to his brother.

• 4:03Speaker 05

  Unfortunately, his brother was not looking at the time. So when he said, "Did you see that?", he said, "No, I didn't see anything."

• 4:11John Hopkins?

  Later, when they rejoin their parents on the slopes, Danny tells his dad about what he saw. But he can't get him to take his story seriously.

• 4:19Speaker 05

  His dad questioned him and said, "Are you sure? People down here saw that plane too? Maybe it just disappeared over the horizon." And so Danny began to doubt what he saw, and he just sort of let it go.

• 4:37John Hopkins?

  Meanwhile, less than a mile to the west, just below a secluded ridge, the wreckage of an aircraft lies smoldering in the trees. And inside the crumpled fuselage, half-buried in debris, are two other brothers, aged eight and 11. Their names are Mark and Andy Godfrey.

• 4:57Speaker 06

  I remember kind of the point of impact, where you just hear sounds and noises and violent deceleration, a crash. Just that moment where I blackout.

• 5:09Speaker 05

  It was just the tearing sound of ripping through the trees. And then, I think we must have hit one final tree to come to rest. And that's when I was probably thrown forward and knocked unconscious.

• 5:30John Hopkins?

  Ever wondered what you would do when disaster strikes? If your life depended on your next decision, could you make the right choice? Welcome to Real Survival Stories. These are the astonishing tales of ordinary people thrown into extraordinary situations. People suddenly forced to fight for their lives.

• 5:51John Hopkins?

  In this episode, we meet Mark and Andy Godfrey. In March 1974, the two brothers, just eight and 11 years old, are traveling with their mom, dad, brother and sister to Aspen, Colorado, for the family's annual skiing holiday.

• 6:06John Hopkins?

  The trip is one of the highlights of the year. And as their plane begins its descent over the snow-covered Rocky Mountains, their excitement for the week ahead builds to fever pitch. When all of a sudden, the mood changes.

• 6:21Speaker 06

  It stopped being sunny and it started getting cloudy. It started getting a lot more turbulent. Things got very, very serious, very, very quickly.

• 6:32John Hopkins?

  With the aircraft rapidly losing altitude, the pilot appears to have made a critical miscalculation. And while he tries to correct his error, all the family on board can do is hold on tight as the plane struggles to avoid the mountains looming from the clouds.

• 6:50Speaker 05

  What I really remember is just looking out the left window right next to me and seeing the ground very closely and the trees and just being confused why we were so low. And the last thing I remember is my mother screaming, "Oh, my God, we're gonna crash."

• 7:11John Hopkins?

  I'm John Hopkins. From the Noiser Podcast Network, this is Real Survival Stories.

• 7:40John Hopkins?

  It's the evening of Friday, March 1, 1974. In a well-to-do suburb of Houston, Texas, inside a large house on a quiet, tree-lined street, a family of seven is at home finishing dinner.

• 7:54John Hopkins?

  Drop in on this family most evenings and you'll find a home bustling with noise and activity. But tonight, the atmosphere is even livelier than usual because tomorrow, the Godfrees leave for Aspen, the upscale ski resort in the mountains of Colorado.

• 8:10John Hopkins?

  Once the dishes have been cleared away, eight-year-old Andy scampers upstairs to his bedroom.

• 8:16John Hopkins?

  Of all the Godfrees, no one is more excited for the coming week. This is just the second year he's been old enough to go on the annual skiing trip, and he can't wait.

• 8:28Speaker 05

  I had gone the year before at the age of seven. Before that, I would be left behind with my grandparents because I was just too young to go on the family trip. So I had gone the year before in 1973, probably my first time skiing. I was extremely excited to learn how to ski. So when March in 1974 rolled around, I was extremely excited again.

• 8:55John Hopkins?

  Andy is the second youngest of five. The birth of his sister Paula eighteen months ago means he's no longer the baby of the family. But there's still quite a gap between him and his eldest siblings, fifteen-year-old Ellen and fourteen-year-old Billy.

• 9:11Speaker 05

  My older brother Billy was, you know, I'd say he sort of ruled the roost. I was just the youngest brother of three, and so I was intimidated by him. He was much bigger and stronger. So, you know, stay out of his room, those kind of things.

• 9:28John Hopkins?

  Hurrying past Billy's off-limits teenage sanctum, Andy pushes open the door of his own bedroom, which he shares with another brother, eleven-year-old Mark.

• 9:37Speaker 05

  I'd say he was a little bit more quiet than I was, not as quite as outgoing. Part of that might be the dynamic of being a middle child where you're, you know, I don't know, not as expressive. And I'm three and a half years younger than Mark, so for a while there, I was the youngest of four. So I was pretty rambunctious and always getting into things.

• 10:01Speaker 06

  You might say that Mark is more like his mother and Andy's more like their father in some aspects of their personality. I think that we're, you know, a kind of a good yin and yang to each other.

• 10:18John Hopkins?

  For Mark, a shy, middle child in a family of big personalities, it hasn't always been easy to figure out where he fits within that ecosystem. But lately, things have started to fall into place.

• 10:32Speaker 06

  I was just kind of coming into my own, if you will, and understanding my place in the larger world. If you were to kind of think back to when you were 10 or 11, you start getting a better grasp of the world at large, if you will. And I remember kind of the better understanding where my place was.

• 10:50John Hopkins?

  For all their differences, the Godfrey children share many things. The same fair hair, the same blue eyes and wide, toothy smiles. They share an aptitude for sport, with Millie in particular showing a lot of promise on the football field.

• 11:06John Hopkins?

  Their father, William, is an executive at a national bank. Mother, Dineen, is a homemaker who has her hands full with the five kids.

• 11:15John Hopkins?

  In family portraits, the Godfrees could be an advertisement for the American dream of health, wealth, and happiness. And it's not just a surface impression. This really is a close-knit unit.

• 11:30John Hopkins?

  Later that Friday evening, Andy and Mark are tucked up in bed, too excited to sleep, when their dad comes in to say goodnight.

• 11:40Speaker 05

  My dad was a guitar player and he was a big John Denver fan. So Mark and I remember the night before the accident, he came into our room and played a John Denver song, "Rockin' Mountain High", as a lullaby to put us to sleep. So to say we were just so excited to be leaving the next morning is a big understatement.

• 12:01Speaker 06

  I've read studies that a person's imprint, if you will, their character, their personality, is basically set in the first three years of their life. So if you're swaddled in love and protection and happiness, I think that has a big impact on your overall personality and your outlook in the world going forward.

• 12:28Speaker 00

  Chronic migraine is 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more.

• 12:33Speaker 01

  Botox, onabotulinum toxin A, prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine before they start. It's not for those with 14 or fewer headache days a month. It prevents, on average, eight to nine

• 12:43Speaker 00

  headache days a month versus six to seven for placebo.

• 12:46Speaker 02

  Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulties swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms, and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS, Lou Gehrig's Disease, Myasthenia gravis, or Lambert Eaton Syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects.

• 13:22Speaker 00

  Why wait? Ask your doctor. Visit botoxchronicmigraine.com or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more.

• 13:30Speaker 03

  The award-winning American Airlines Advantage program rewards more than travel. It takes your whole life to new heights. Earn miles when you fly, as well as with thousands of your favorite brands, and then redeem those miles for flights, upgrades, and experiences worldwide. Advantage members also enjoy earlier boarding and free high-speed Wi-Fi in-flight. Join for free and start earning towards your next adventure at aa.com/spotify.

• 14:01John Hopkins?

  It's the following morning. The Godfris carry their bags across the tarmac over Houston Airfield. The only member of the family missing is the toddler, Paula. She'll be staying behind with her grandparents. Up ahead, its red and orange fuselage gleaming in the Texas sun, is a small, twin-engine, turboprop plane. Recently, the bank where William Godfrey works acquired this Mitsubishi MU2 aircraft for its executives to use at their leisure. In previous years, the family has always flown commercial. The upgrade to a private plane lends a distinct glamour to their departure. Young Andy can barely contain himself.

• 14:44Speaker 05

  I was so excited to get on that plane. For some reason, I wanted to sit in the copilot seat when we took off. And my older brother Billy had already decided that he was going to be sitting there. So we had this little negotiation, which is very surprising, because as I said before, I was totally intimidated by him.

• 15:07John Hopkins?

  While the bags are loaded into the overhead compartments, Andy summons up the nerve to challenge his big brother.

• 15:13Speaker 05

  For some reason this day, I had the courage to say, I really want to sit there Billy. So he said, fine, I'll sit in the copilot seat when we take off and you can sit there when we land. And I was like, okay, deal. So I ended up going and sitting in the back left seat of the airplane and Mark was in the back right seat.

• 15:34John Hopkins?

  Satisfied with his negotiating, Andy buckles in next to Mark at the back of the plane.

• 15:40John Hopkins?

  A few moments later, the pilot sparks the engines, the propellers splutter into life. And as they accelerate down the runway, the fuselage rattling and shuddering, Mark shifts nervously in his seat.

• 15:54John Hopkins?

  A shadow of unease passes over his face.

• 15:59Speaker 06

  I remember being on the plane, looking around the plane. I remember this memory very vividly and thinking that something could happen to the plane and we're all together and that would not be good. And I remember putting that out of my brain and saying, well, that's not going to happen. We're all together. Everything's going to be fine, Mark. Don't, don't worry about that.

• 16:22John Hopkins?

  Soon they reach cruising altitude, the aircraft leveling just below the clouds.

• 16:28John Hopkins?

  Mark glances around at the smiling, carefree faces of his family and manages at last to relax.

• 16:35Speaker 06

  There was a lot of, you know, energy, excitement. There were a lot of snacks on board. So we were, you know, eating whatever snacks were available. So it was a carefree atmosphere with, with kind of no, no worries or concerns.

• 16:53John Hopkins?

  It's about three hours later. So far, the flight has been smooth and uneventful. The pilot has flown them over central Texas and the northwest corner of New Mexico before crossing into Colorado, pointing out sites of interest along the way.

• 17:09John Hopkins?

  The weather has been clear, providing those on board with magnificent views of the landscape below. The topography shifting from wide, open prairie land to high desert plains. And finally, to the snow-flecked foothills of the Rockies.

• 17:24John Hopkins?

  In the cockpit, the pilot reduces their speed and eases the controls into a gentle descent towards Aspen.

• 17:33John Hopkins?

  A few minutes later, they enter a layer of dense, low-hanging cloud. At this stage, heavy turbulence might cause some of the passengers to experience a sudden sinking feeling in the pit of their stomachs.

• 17:47John Hopkins?

  Realizing they must nearly be there, Andy unbuckles his seatbelt and makes his way unsteadily up the aisle. It's time for Billy to uphold his end of the bargain.

• 17:57Speaker 05

  I walked up to the front and I said, "Billy, we're almost at Aspen. It's my turn to land, to sit there." And he said, "Uh, no." You know, for whatever reason, maybe he was nervous because it was so bumpy and getting kind of scary, he said, "Go back to your seat." So I went back to my seat.

• 18:14John Hopkins?

  Andy remonstrates under his breath. He skulks back to his seat, and in his indignation, forgets to refasten his seatbelt.

• 18:24John Hopkins?

  On the other side of the aisle, Mark is staring out of the window. There's no view anymore. The landscape has been swallowed by a swirling mass of leaden cloud. It presses itself against the cabin window, like it's trying to force its way inside.

• 18:40Speaker 06

  At some point, it stopped being sunny, and it started getting cloudy. At some point, it started getting a lot more turbulent. And I do remember, we were, I won't say final approach, but we, we knew we were near Aspen, that things got very, very serious, very, very quickly.

• 18:59John Hopkins?

  In the eerie twilights beyond the window, the propellers seem to labor against the frigid air. The wings seesaw.

• 19:08John Hopkins?

  A strange clattering sound emanates from the cockpit as a blizzard of ice crystals pelts the windscreen.

• 19:15John Hopkins?

  In the space of seconds, things have gone from light and cheery to subdued and fraught. Knuckles whiten around armrests.

• 19:26John Hopkins?

  Billy calls back from the copilot's seat a dark joke, comparing the situation to a news story from a couple of years ago about the Uruguayan rugby team whose plane crashed in the Andes. His parents are quick to admonish him. The comment feels too close to the bone.

• 19:42Speaker 06

  It was the tone in my mother's voice, and then probably my father's voice, too, that flipped a switch. Hearing them reprimand our brother and telling him to be quiet in a tone that I'd probably never heard before.

• 19:58John Hopkins?

  It's become clear by now that this is not just a spot of bad turbulence. Something has gone seriously wrong.

• 20:06John Hopkins?

  As the pilot wrestles with the controls, William and Dineen do their best to reassure the children. Andy, meanwhile, turns his head to the side, his gaze fixed on the window.

• 20:19Speaker 05

  What I really remember is just looking out the left window right next to me and seeing the ground very closely and the trees and just being confused why we were so low.

• 20:34John Hopkins?

  As they drop even lower, mountains loom through the clouds, craggy peaks and frozen cliffs banded with black granite. Dark tracts of forest appear, close enough to make out the individual boughs weighted down with snow.

• 20:51John Hopkins?

  Mark stares terrified, unable to pull his eyes away.

• 20:56Speaker 06

  What I saw vividly is what looked to me like the ground rushing up to the plane. Obviously, it was the other way around. The plane was falling very quickly to the ground, but I saw trees coming up at a very rapid pace up to the window.

• 21:14John Hopkins?

  The plane banks sharply.

• 21:18John Hopkins?

  Somewhere down below, alpine pistes weave through the trees. Skiers and hikers are enjoying themselves, making the most of the last decent snow of the season, unaware that just beyond a ridge to the west, something terrible is unfolding in the frozen air.

• 21:35Speaker 06

  I heard the jet engines, the turboprop engines, whining at a very high pitch.

• 21:43Speaker 05

  And the last thing I remember is my mother screaming, "Oh my god, we're gonna crash."

• 21:50John Hopkins?

  At approximately 3:30 PM, as the pilot tries to maneuver the aircraft over an alpine ridge, the slanting left wing shears the top of an 100-foot spruce tree, which is all it takes.

• 22:03Speaker 06

  I remember kind of the point of impact, where you just hear sounds and noises and violent deceleration, a crash, just that moment where I blackout.

• 22:15Speaker 05

  It was just the tearing sound of ripping through the trees, and then I can remember the impact, sort of like a luge, you know, hitting the snow and sliding, and then I think we must have hit one final tree to come to rest, and that's when I was probably thrown forward and knocked unconscious.

• 22:43John Hopkins?

  It is Saturday, March 2nd, 1974. A few miles south of Glenwood Springs, Colorado, the mountains are bound tightly by a deadening layer of snow and frost. Millions of spruce trees, twisted and bare, stand huddled against the landscape like shivering battalions, backs bent from countless harsh winters.

• 23:07John Hopkins?

  Just one valley over, the lights of a bustling ski resort glow invitingly.

• 23:13John Hopkins?

  But this side of the mountain remains obscured, shrouded in a crepuscular gloom. The silence is deafening, the stillness absolute.

• 23:24John Hopkins?

  Early this afternoon, a sound threatened to disturb the quiet, a muffled whomp, accompanied by a shrill metallic rending that reverberated fleetingly in the thin alpine air, before it was snuffed out, swallowed by the snow.

• 23:42John Hopkins?

  But the source of the sound did leave a trace.

• 23:47John Hopkins?

  Just below the crest of a tree-lined ridge, something has gouged a ragged path through the pines, leaving a trail of broken branches and a scattering of loose debris.

• 23:59John Hopkins?

  The path leads downhill about 100 feet before arriving at a pile of hideously compacted metal, barely recognizable as the fuselage of an aeroplane. Wings sheared off, cockpit caved in, engine cowlings ripped asunder. The bodies of the pilot and the six passengers are still strapped into their seats, all except for one.

• 24:24John Hopkins?

  Eight-year-old Andy Godfrey lies in a heap of shattered glass and mangled aluminium. He's unconscious, but breathing.

• 24:35John Hopkins?

  And slowly, Andy's eyelids twitch ajar.

• 24:39Speaker 05

  I wasn't sure, you know, if it was dawn or dusk, but I think we crashed around 3 o'clock on Saturday afternoon. And so maybe I was unconscious for a half an hour, an hour. I have no idea, but this is where it gets foggy because I think I was so concussed.

• 25:00John Hopkins?

  It is in this state of shock that Andy hears a voice, his mother's.

• 25:07John Hopkins?

  In the seconds before she slips away, Denise Godfrey manages to pass on some crucial words of advice to her son.

• 25:14Speaker 05

  She literally gave me marching orders as she was passing away. She said, conserve the food, take care of your brother, and don't stray from the plane.

• 25:25John Hopkins?

  Andy turns his head. There, about five feet away from him, is 11-year-old Mark, badly hurt, clearly stunned, but alive.

• 25:35Speaker 05

  He was really shaken up and maybe had a little bit of blood on him and stuff. So that was a very scary memory. But it also must have been comforting too to see that I wasn't alone, that there was someone else with me.

• 25:49John Hopkins?

  While his brother crawls through the wreckage towards him, Mark drifts in and out of consciousness. His injuries are more severe than Andy's. His legs are pinned under the seat in front, which was shoved into him as the plane concertinaed.

• 26:05Speaker 06

  I remember having hallucinations for a long time. I used to think of them dreams, but now as I get older, I realize I was hallucinating vividly. I thought I was anywhere but where I was. I thought I was in the bathroom of our house in Houston. I thought I was in other places.

• 26:27John Hopkins?

  Gradually, Mark's delirium wears off. But being lucid doesn't make any of this easier to process. It still seems like a nightmare, one that he might yet wake up from.

• 26:39Speaker 06

  I would have been so disoriented that it would have taken me a long time to kind of grasp what had happened. And then the grasping of what had happened was completely overwhelming and I think almost too much to process. Andy had been knocked out less and he was maybe moving around a little bit more. And I think us talking and us, you know, confirming for each other, if you will, what had happened helps introduce some level of reality into the situation because you're able to talk to somebody about it.

• 27:16John Hopkins?

  But sometimes, words fail.

• 27:20John Hopkins?

  At eight years old, Andy is only in the second grade. Mark has just started middle school. Less than 24 hours ago, they were being tucked in, having a lullaby sung to them.

• 27:32John Hopkins?

  And now, here they are in the cold and the dark, with everything they know upended. Paralyzed by fear, it's only natural that they grasp for familiarity.

• 27:44John Hopkins?

  And so, as night falls around them, the brothers do what they've always done when the sun goes down.

• 27:51John Hopkins?

  They close their eyes and eventually drift off to sleep.

• 27:58Speaker 00

  I get so many headaches every month.

• 28:01Speaker 01

  It could be chronic migraine, fifteen or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more.

• 28:06Speaker 02

  Botox, onabotulinum toxin A, prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine. It's not for those who have fourteen or fewer headache days a month. Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away, as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms, and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS, Lou Gehrig's Disease, Myasthenia gravis, or Lambert-Eaton Syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects.

• 28:51Speaker 01

  Why wait? Ask your doctor. Visit botoxchronicmigraine.com or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more.

• 29:00Speaker 03

  The award-winning American Airlines Advantage program rewards more than travel. It takes your whole life to new heights. Earn miles when you fly, as well as with thousands of your favorite brands, and then redeem those miles for flights, upgrades, and experiences worldwide. Advantage members also enjoy earlier boarding and free high-speed Wi-Fi in-flight. Join for free and start earning towards your next adventure at aa.com/spotify.

• 29:32John Hopkins?

  It's morning. The sky above the wreckage is a pall of white.

• 29:39John Hopkins?

  A few miles away, in Glenwood Springs, skiers anxiously await weather updates as major blizzard warnings threaten the closure of certain runs. Inside the fuselage, a gray translucence leaks through the cracks in the ruptured metal. Andy and Mark, their woolen jumpers stiff with frost, open their eyes to the daylight and peer around.

• 30:05Speaker 06

  Andy and I slowly became aware of our surroundings. Our mother was trapped, I think, very close to me, if not, you know, partly on top of me with broken skis and broken plane parts and things like that. So that is a, but a tough memory to have. I don't think we had identified any other family members in the general vicinity of us that I can recall.

• 30:33John Hopkins?

  Everything is a crumpled mess. Sharp, metallic, angular.

• 30:40John Hopkins?

  Mark can't free his legs from whatever's trapping them. And if he moves his head, it scrapes the bottom of the collapsed roof. He is stuck, entombed in debris.

• 30:51John Hopkins?

  For Andy, who wasn't buckled in when the plane crashed, he is able to move around a bit more.

• 30:58John Hopkins?

  At one stage, he even leaves the fuselage, clambering through a jacket hole in the side of the plane and emerging into a snowy wasteland enclosed by towering evergreens.

• 31:09Speaker 06

  I do remember stepping outside the airplane just to sort of see if I could walk away or something, and the snow was so deep, that scared me, so I hopped right back in.

• 31:19John Hopkins?

  As soon as Andy steps outside, his mother's instructions come back to him.

• 31:24Speaker 06

  I'm sure her words were sort of echoing, you know, don't leave the airplane and conserve the food and take care of your brother.

• 31:32John Hopkins?

  Andy pulls himself back inside the fuselage, kicking the snow from his shoes.

• 31:38John Hopkins?

  The urge to run off and find help might be strong, but that's exactly what he was instructed not to do.

• 31:45John Hopkins?

  Besides, he can't abandon his brother.

• 31:52John Hopkins?

  Mark's blonde hair is matted with blood. His head droops forward onto his chest, and his body is racked with deep, violent shivers.

• 32:02Speaker 06

  I think because of some of the memories, you know, Andy has about being instructed by our mother, gave him some direction, if you will. And he also realized that I was not in good shape and seemed to be fading, that he had to, in effect, kind of take on that older brother role and be the cheerleader for the group and try and encourage me, you know, to hold on.

• 32:29John Hopkins?

  As Sunday wears on, it starts to seem like Mark could be slipping.

• 32:34John Hopkins?

  Andy does what he can. He cuddles Mark to keep him warm. He digs through the debris and retrieves some of the snacks they'd been enjoying on the flight.

• 32:44John Hopkins?

  When Mark gasps for water, Andy tries to provide for him.

• 32:48Speaker 05

  He was getting weaker and weaker is the feeling I had during all that day on Sunday. You know, I tried to keep him warm and give him what little food we had. We had peanuts and maybe chips and a can of Coke. I think we drank a beer. We were just, you know, very thirsty and very hungry. So we were doing whatever we could to survive.

• 33:13John Hopkins?

  At some point, the sky darkens.

• 33:18John Hopkins?

  Freezing wind howls through the fuselage, stinging the boys' faces. They hunker down, arms wrapped around each other, as the world beyond the plane's hollow shell becomes a swirl of impenetrable white.

• 33:32John Hopkins?

  The blizzard lasts for hours.

• 33:36John Hopkins?

  Pretty soon, the wreckage is barely visible under the deep deposits. For Mark and Andy, trapped inside, there is a sense of being buried alive.

• 33:48John Hopkins?

  Later that day, a distant sound filters through the snow.

• 33:54Speaker 05

  We can remember hearing the sound of the planes overhead looking for us, but the visibility was so poor, they couldn't spot us. And really, we were a needle in a haystack. So whatever parts of the plane that were exposed before the snowstorm, think about it, they just got covered up.

• 34:10John Hopkins?

  For Andy and Mark, evidence that people are looking for them brings little comfort. These search planes seem to inhabit a different universe from the nightmarish world inside the fuselage. Mark, in particular, seems to be losing hope.

• 34:25Speaker 05

  I remember him getting depressed and negative and saying, you know, I don't think we're gonna survive. You know, I don't know if I was always this positive, but I said, you know, we're gonna survive, hang in there.

• 34:35John Hopkins?

  Soon enough, night falls for the second time.

• 34:39Speaker 06

  The first night was one thing, but to have to go through that 24 hours later was probably kind of the low for us.

• 34:49John Hopkins?

  The sound of the search planes fades to silence.

• 34:53John Hopkins?

  Once again, Mark and Andy are left with nothing but the sound of their own shivering breaths.

• 34:59John Hopkins?

  The temperature, already at freezing, plummets. The fresh snow that has fallen onto the crash site hardens like setting cement, sealing the fuselage in a thick icy carapace. The cold leeches into their bones, slowly freezing the tissue, cutting off the blood to their toes and fingers. Frostbite is killing them from the inside out.

• 35:25John Hopkins?

  And yet they still manage to stave off despair.

• 35:28Speaker 05

  That kind of strength, we all wonder if we have it. And I don't think you ever get the answer to that question until you're put into the situation. But I think we all have it when we really need to. It's just a basic human survival mechanism that we're all born with. That put in the worst situation, we will perform at our best.

• 35:56John Hopkins?

  The hours pile up, the night deepening. At some stage, the brothers shut their eyes and managed to fall asleep once more.

• 36:09Speaker 05

  The next morning, waking up, it was a beautiful day. So that probably added some optimism that they're going to find us today. The weather's beautiful.

• 36:21John Hopkins?

  It's Monday morning. A shaft of sunlight flares at the torn edge of the half-buried fuselage, piercing the gloomy interior.

• 36:32John Hopkins?

  Reaching out an arm, Andy can feel the sun warming his frozen skin. He eats a handful of snow to quench his raging thirst.

• 36:42John Hopkins?

  While Andy is up and moving, Mark's eyes are still closed. His skin is ghostly pale. The effort of staying alive is becoming intolerable.

• 36:56John Hopkins?

  But then, his senses prick.

• 37:02Speaker 06

  All of a sudden, we just started hearing a noise. I think maybe we had heard some planes go by earlier, certainly during some of the storm. I can vaguely recall hearing planes fly over us, but we couldn't see them, they couldn't see us. So it wasn't like this was the first sound that we heard for the last three days, but it got louder.

• 37:25John Hopkins?

  This isn't like the search planes from yesterday.

• 37:29John Hopkins?

  Soon, the distant rumble grows to a deafening, steady roar. Andy scrambles to the opening.

• 37:37Speaker 05

  I stick my head out of the wreckage, and there's the helicopter coming straight at us. And I start signaling with my hand, and, you know, we're rescued. And that is a feeling, I guess, very, very few people get to experience, the feeling of just unbelievable gratefulness and joy of being out of the ordeal. It's over.

• 38:13John Hopkins?

  Monday, March 4, was a morning of firsts for Danny Schaefer. The nine-year-old had never ridden in a helicopter before, let alone on a rescue mission, one in which he was the key witness. But as novel as the experience was, his excitement didn't last long. The ground looked very different from the cockpit, and he quickly became disoriented, unable to pinpoint where he'd seen what he'd seen two days earlier.

• 38:42John Hopkins?

  On Saturday afternoon, Danny had been skiing on Sunlight Mountain when he'd spotted a plane clip a tree on a distant ridge line and disappear in a puff of smoke. After failing to convince his dad to take his story seriously, he had done his best to push the incident to the back of his mind, but it nagged at his conscience.

• 39:03John Hopkins?

  The next day, when he heard the search planes buzzing across the valley, Danny's father realized his mistake. The boy had been telling the truth. He contacted local police, who promptly enlisted Danny's help in the search for the crash site.

• 39:18John Hopkins?

  After failing to get his bearings in the helicopter, the mountain rescue team drove Danny in a snowcat to the place where he'd originally seen the plane go down.

• 39:28John Hopkins?

  Moments later, a helicopter was making a beeline for the precise spot on the horizon where Danny was pointing.

• 39:36John Hopkins?

  By the time Andy Godfrey stuck his head out of the fuselage and gazed up into the pulsing roar of rotor blades, word was already crackling through a dozen radios. "Crash site located." And then, moments later, another communication went out. "Two survivors found."

• 39:58Speaker 00

  I get so many headaches every month.

• 40:00Speaker 01

  It could be chronic migraine. Fifteen or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more.

• 40:06Speaker 02

  Botox, onabotulinum toxin A, prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine. It's not for those who have fourteen or fewer headache days a month. Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away, as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms, and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS, Lou Gehrig's Disease, Myasthenia gravis, or Lambert Eaton Syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects.

• 40:51Speaker 01

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• 41:00Speaker 03

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• 41:31John Hopkins?

  It's several hours later. Mark Godfrey blinks up into the bright lights of an emergency room.

• 41:39Speaker 06

  All of a sudden, there are a bunch of people surrounding me. There are people asking me questions. How old am I? What's my name? Where do I live? What grade am I in? Do you know where you are now? They weren't answering questions that I was asking, like where's my mom and dad? Where's my brother and sister? So then I slowly started realizing, you know, that what Andy and I maybe thought was a hallucination was actually something in real life.

• 42:06John Hopkins?

  Due to the different severity levels of their injuries, the brothers are now separated. Mark wheeled into intensive care, where he'll be put on life support, while Andy receives treatment for his frostbitten feet.

• 42:20John Hopkins?

  That evening, as he lies swaddled in bandages, Andy learns the fate of his mom, dad, brother, and sister.

• 42:29Speaker 05

  I didn't have a big reaction and maybe I was still kind of in shock or or whatever, but I remember learning later that the reporter said, well, he obviously doesn't realize what's happened. You know, otherwise he would be reacting differently. And, you know, to this day, I feel that the whole accident sort of numbed my feelings a little bit. And it seems like I cry at different times now that, you know, don't cry in things that are really, really sad. And I do cry in things that maybe aren't sad. So maybe something changed to me then, but that's definitely how it went down that first night.

• 43:17John Hopkins?

  Andy will stay in hospital for a month, eventually losing several toes to frostbite. Mark's journey to recovery is much longer and more complex. He will spend three months in hospital as the medics work to stave off the spread of infection.

• 43:34John Hopkins?

  Ultimately, doctors will have no choice but to amputate. He will lose his left foot and his right leg two inches below the knee.

• 43:44John Hopkins?

  During his long stay in hospital, drifting in and out of a medication-induced haze, Mark slowly comes to terms with the crushing hand he has been dealt.

• 43:55Speaker 06

  God had thrown me two, you know, very, very big curveballs. One was the loss of my family. And then secondly, you know, the more time I spent in the hospital, the more I realized how much my life was going to be completely different than than what my prior life had been. So not only had I lost my parents, but now I was going to be leaving the hospital as a severely disabled 11-year-old boy in a wheelchair.

• 44:22John Hopkins?

  After leaving the hospital, Mark and Andy are taken in by their aunt and uncle, the Schumachers, who live in Aspen. Soon, little Paula, who has been staying with their grandparents back in Houston, comes to join them.

• 44:37John Hopkins?

  And so, orphaned and uprooted, the surviving Godfrey children must embark on the next chapter of their lives.

• 44:44Speaker 05

  I mean, it was just sort of moving on. We did not get to go back to Houston and see any of our old friends, or my grandparents were still in Houston. We just immediately sort of transitioned into the Schumaker house and, you know, started making new friends, kind of moving on to the best of our ability.

• 45:07Speaker 06

  I went from being the quiet middle child who's just navigating the family dynamic now to being the oldest in my family and having my grandparents kind of whisper in my ear things like, "You need to be the head of your family now, Mark. You need to be in charge now, Mark. You need to be the carrier of of the family history and the family culture." I felt very alone at that time. I felt like my structure had been, you know, exploded around me, if you will. I still had both my maternal and paternal grandparents, and I was going to be living with my aunt and uncle, who I knew, but, you know, quite frankly, didn't know all that well.

• 45:50Speaker 06

  And so I kind of pulled inside of myself at that time quite a bit. I started, I think, building walls of protection around me.

• 46:05John Hopkins?

  Andy and Mark grow into healthy, fulfilled adults. They become husbands and fathers. But the plane crash doesn't go away. More than three decades after the accident, Andy is talking to a therapist about something unrelated to the crash, when he casually mentions the thing that he is effectively disassociated from for all these years.

• 46:27Speaker 05

  He sort of just said, you know, "Tell me about your life." And I said, "I had a life in Houston, and then I was in this plane crash, and we moved to Aspen." And he's like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Tell me more about the plane crash."

• 46:41John Hopkins?

  It's a watershed moment, speaking about it in detail for the first time in decades. It prompts him to go one step further. Andy decides to write an article for the Aspen Times Weekly recounting the events of March 1974. He titles the article "Reconciling the Plane Crash." As well as being a therapeutic process, writing it sets off a chain reaction of fortuitous events. A childhood friend of Mark's, John Breen, has contacts in the world of documentary film, and the article sparks an idea.

• 47:18Speaker 06

  I think John started thinking, "Well, I have a story that I think is pretty incredible. I wonder if that could be a potential subject for a documentary." And so I think after Andy's article came out, Andy and John started talking, and then they approached me about maybe making a documentary.

• 47:37John Hopkins?

  Mark is hesitant at first, but in the end, he agrees to take part in the documentary.

• 47:44Speaker 05

  It's not something Mark and I were trying to do, but inadvertently, the process of making our film helped both Mark and I heal. Especially Mark. He really was able to open up, talk about how the accident affected him, and how he grew through this process of making a film and sharing the story.

• 48:07John Hopkins?

  The film's impact continues to grow in myriad, unexpected ways. It catches the attention of a world-renowned psychiatrist, who contacts the brothers and suggests they establish a foundation to help other survivors process trauma through the act of making short films. Soon, the Godfrey Foundation for Cinema Therapy is born, and it's still actively helping people today.

• 48:34John Hopkins?

  As stated on the website, the foundation dedicates its work to the memory of those members of the Godfrey family who died so tragically: William, Danine, Ellen, and Billy. Looking back on the making of the documentary, Mark recalls many cathartic moments, but one stands out.

• 48:51Speaker 06

  We walked up to the crash site with one of the rescuers, and that was such a powerful moment with him. He said something along the lines of, "You don't get over it, you just kind of get through it." And I think that's very accurate. And again, you know, it took Andy and I decades to kind of get through it. So I find myself counseling other people that are going through rough times. "You're in a storm right now, but the weather will clear, and things will get better. But you've just got to grind it out, and you've got to just live each day at a time. But just recognize that you're in a storm right now, and you know, kind of lean on your faith. And no one knows what's going to happen, but you'll slowly get through it, and life goes on."

• 49:47John Hopkins?

  Next time, we meet saturation diver Richard Bradley.

• 49:53John Hopkins?

  In 2011, Richard is 130 feet underwater in the Northwest Shelf, Australia's largest area of oceanic oil and gas extraction.

• 50:03John Hopkins?

  He's performing some routine cleaning when he feels a sudden pain in his left forearm. It was what I imagined being shot would be like. I took the full blast from the nozzle at point-blank into my forearm. The ultra-high-pressure water blaster he's using has malfunctioned, sending a jet of dirty water into a deep puncture in his arm.

• 50:25John Hopkins?

  He is now seriously wounded, but he can't simply swim to the surface. His blood and body tissue are saturated with high-pressure helium.

• 50:35John Hopkins?

  What he does next will be crucial as he follows a complex, high-risk procedure. Every step must go perfectly if he is to have any hope of getting out of this alive.

• 50:47John Hopkins?

  That's next time on Real Survival Stories. Listen right now without waiting and without ads by joining Noiser Plus.

• 50:55Speaker 00

  I get so many headaches every month.

• 50:58Speaker 01

  It could be chronic migraine, 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more.

• 51:03Speaker 02

  Botox, onabotulinum toxin A, prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine. It's not for those who have 14 or fewer headache days a month. Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms, and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS, Lou Gehrig's Disease, Myasthenia gravis, or Lambert-Eaton Syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects.

• 51:48Speaker 01

  Why wait? Ask your doctor. Visit botoxchronicmigraine.com or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more.

• 51:58Speaker 03

  The award-winning American Airlines Advantage program rewards more than travel. It takes your whole life to new heights. Earn miles when you fly, as well as with thousands of your favorite brands. And then redeem those miles for flights, upgrades, and experiences worldwide. Advantage members also enjoy earlier boarding and free high-speed Wi-Fi in-flight. Join for free and start earning towards your next adventure at aa.com/spotify.