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Ozark Airlines Flight 809: Oak Harbor woman among survivors of deadly 1973 crash

It was called a “non-survivable” airplane crash, one of the deadliest of its time.

OAK HARBOR, Wash. — An Oak Harbor woman was just 7 years old when she was pulled from the wreckage of Ozark Airlines Flight 809 in 1973.

It was called a “non-survivable” airplane crash, one of the deadliest of its time.  

Now, nearly 50 years later, KING 5 and St. Louis NBC affiliate KSDK have uncovered new details about the Ozark Airlines tragedy that killed 38 people and the incredible connection this survivor has to another airline disaster that made international headlines.

A perfect childhood

Tanzi Cordin’s happiest childhood memories are singed by the disaster that destroyed her family.

“It's hard to go back sometimes and look through photographs of such happy times. It actually makes me sad because I want them back,” said Cordin, looking at old family photos on her kitchen table in her Whidbey Island home.

The Cordin family was fresh from a Hawaiian vacation on July 23, 1973. Cordin said her family would fly to far-off places every summer.

Cordin, who was 7 at the time, her 12-year-old sister Nikki and mom Dorris spent the rest of the summer of 1973 with family in Illinois and planned to fly home to Michigan on Ozark Airlines Flight 809. Cordin’s father and eldest sister Laura were awaiting their arrival at home.

Credit: Courtesy Tanzi Cordin
A photograph of Tanzi Cordin and her family before the deadly 1973 crash of Ozark Airlines Flight 809.

“This was actually what I was wearing on the plane, all the way down to the sandals,” said Cordin, pointing to a picture of herself smiling while on vacation in Hawaii. She was wearing a flower print dress, her favorite at the time, with a lei around her neck. The picture was taken weeks before the crash.

Credit: Courtesy Tanzi Cordin
A 1973 photograph of Tanzi Cordin while in Hawaii.

A 'non-survivable' crash

“When we did get to the airport, I didn't feel right,” Cordin recalled. “I felt like I should run and… hide.”

Cordin remembers her sister and mom trying to calm her as they boarded the flight on that hot July day.

“My sister said to me, ‘Would you like the window seat?’ And I said, ‘No.’ And I think about that minute and how that changed both their lives,” Cordin said. “Sometimes I felt like it shouldn't have been me.”

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Roughly 30 minutes after takeoff, the plane crashed into a residential area 2.3 miles southeast of St Louis Lambert International Airport.

“The one thing I still don't remember is going down,” Cordin said.

Forty-four passengers and crew members were on board Ozark Airlines Flight 809 when the plane crashed. Only six people survived.

Cordin’s survival has been called a miracle.

An official investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board determined a severe thunderstorm caused the crash. According to the report, pilots who were in front and behind Flight 809 turned their aircraft around instead of landing during the storm.

RELATED: 1973: The day an Ozark Airlines plane crashed short of Lambert Airport

The report indicated the severity of the weather conditions was not relayed to the Ozark Airlines pilot fast enough for him to reverse course.

The report called the crash “non-survivable.”

“I remember I was facing the sky, and I was still in my seat,” Cordin recalled. “I couldn't move one of my arms. I thought that there was a baby because I, that's all I heard was like whining. I found out that was a dog that was in cargo.”

Two days after the crash, a dog that had been held in the cargo area of the plane was pulled from the wreckage unharmed.

'I saw blood on her face' 

When Cordin woke up after the crash, she heard sirens in the distance and saw chaos around her.

"I did see my sister. I saw blood on her face, but I could tell it was her because of her dress,” Cordin said. “I was surprised when I saw my mom. She had debris all over her. I just looked at her, and her eyes were open, and I said, ‘Mom, mommy, mommy,’ and she just looked at me, and she mouthed the words. She couldn't speak. She just said, ‘I love you.’ That's all I remembered.”

Credit: Courtesy Tanzi Cordin
A photograph of Dorris Cordin.

Cordin never saw her sister Nikki again because she was taken to a different hospital. After a few days, Cordin said her dad had to take Nikki off life support.

“Her brain was gone,” Cordin explained.

Credit: Courtesy Tanzi Cordin
A photograph of Nikki Cordin before she died in the 1973 plane crash.

Cordin was taken to the hospital with a broken arm and internal injuries, but she doesn’t remember how she got there.

A newspaper article from the time of the crash detailed how a St. Louis man named Donald Pollak “rushed to the crash scene and pulled 7-year-old Tanzi Cordin from the wreckage.”

Credit: Newspapers.com, obtained by KSDK
A newspaper clipping from 1973 about Ozark Airlines Flight 809 crashing near St. Louis Lambert International Airport.

“Pulled what? How did that happen?” Cordin asked after reading the article about her rescue. “I knew nothing about this man. I wish I could have met him.”

KING 5 is working to connect Cordin with the man who rescued her, but records show he may have died in 1991.

Cordin was eventually reunited with her father and oldest sister, Laura. Cordin said she rarely talked about what happened with her family.

Credit: Courtesy Tanzi Cordin
Side-by-side photos show Tanzi Cordin standing next to her father (L), and Tanzi Cordin hugging her older sister, Laura (R).

“I think [my dad] felt like, ‘If I didn't talk to her enough about it, she wouldn't go through the trauma of remembering it,” Cordin said.

As she grew up, Cordin began to recall more about the crash. At the age of 20, her memories began to break her.

“I had a lot of depression and a lot of anxiety. I did. I'm not proud of it, but I did attempt suicide,” Cordin said. "When I woke up in the hospital from doing that, my dad looked at me and was like, ‘What are you trying to do, make me childless?’ Then two months later… he died of a heart attack.”

Family survives plane hijacking a year before crash 

Cordin has beat the odds not once but twice. A year before Ozark Airlines Flight 809 crashed, Cordin survived another airline emergency.

On July 31, 1972, Corbin and her family were on a flight from Detroit to Miami when the plane they were on was hijacked.

“It's very strange, isn't it? Like how many people have experiences like that… with being in a hijacked plane?" wondered Cordin.

According to newspaper reports from the time, most passengers didn’t realize the plane had been hijacked until it landed. Cordin was just 6 years old at the time.

The hijacking made international headlines. According to newspaper reports, after the flight landed in Miami the hijackers received $1 million and flew to Algiers.

"We were wondering why we couldn't get off the plane,” recalled Cordin. “Somebody walked by the aisle with, I don't know what kind of weapon, it was a semi-automatic. What? Is it one in a million that that would happen?”

A lifelong impact 

One of the last times Cordin was on an airplane was in 1993, when she was moving to Oak Harbor to be closer to her sister Laura.

The two were inseparable for decades until Laura’s death in 2011.

Cordin never married and has no children. She said she regrets not having a family of her own now that she has outlived her parents and siblings.

“I wished I had a family,” Cordin said. “I think part of me was almost afraid to [start a family] because I didn't want to go through it again. I didn’t want to get attached to anybody that much again, you know? Which is really sad, right? But the loss was incredible.”

Credit: Courtesy Tanzi Cordin
A photo of Laura (L) and Tanzi Cordin (R).

Cordin said she’s grateful she was able to maximize her time with her sister. She hopes her story helps others appreciate the family they have.

“I'd give anything back to fight with my sister or to be mad at my mom,” Cordin said. “Anything can happen in a split second. Your world is just gone. So, enjoy what you have, you know? Don't take it for granted.”

There is an effort underway to erect a monument at the crash site in St. Louis before the 50th anniversary of the crash. Cordin said a monument at the site is long overdue, and she would like to see it. 

She said she is also considering writing a book about her life.

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