On August 16, 1987, a Northwest Airlines flight took off from the Detroit airport. Soon after takeoff the plane crashed onto a highway. 155 people died. When rescuers arrived, among the carnage of cars and craft they found a four-year-old girl. She said her name was Cecelia. Because of Cecelia’s almost perfect condition it was thought she had been a passenger in a car rather than the plane. A quick check of the flight’s roster showed they had thought wrongly. Cecelia had been on flight 225. Cecelia explained how in the plane’s last moments, her mother, Paula, had unbuckled her seat belt, knelt in front of her daughter, and held Cecelia as tightly as she could. The mother put herself between her daughter and death.
