It is a story of survival that defies belief.
As rescuers picked through the smoking wreckage of a crashed airliner, the faintest of cries was carried on the night air.
Amid the carnage and the other 154 people who had perished, miraculously one tiny passenger was still alive.
Cecelia Cichan was just four years old when she became the sole survivor of doomed Northwest Airlines Flight 255.
Now, exactly 25 years after the disaster that claimed the lives of her parents and six-year-old brother, she has spoken for the first time about her experience.
“I never go a day without thinking about the people on Flight 255,” she says.
“It’s kind of hard not to think about it. When I look in the mirror, I have visual scars.”
Cecelia suffered horrific injuries including a fractured skull, broken leg and collarbone and third-degree burns.
She underwent four skin grafts for the burns on her arms and legs.
Today she is a happily and recently married 29-year-old.
Yet while the pain from her injuries has faded over time, a tattoo of an aeroplane on her left wrist reminds her of a tragedy that she thinks about “every day”.
She says the tattoo helps to remind her of her lucky escape and the thanks she owes to those who saved her.
Her incredible story started on August 16, 1987, when she was returning from a holiday with mum Paula, dad Michael and brother, David, six.
They were heading back to Phoenix, Arizona from Michigan after celebrating Paula’s birthday at her parents’ home.
Their flight took off from Detroit Airport’s runway 3C at approximately 8.45pm, but just 50 feet above the ground, it started to roll from side to side.
The twin-engined McDonnell Douglas MD-82 then stalled, and hit a lighting pole at the end of the runway, which sliced 18 feet from its left wing and ignited jet fuel stored in the wing.
The stricken jet hit an Avis car hire building before crashing on to a road, hitting several vehicles and breaking apart before finally bursting into flames as it hit a bridge.
In total 156 people died, including two on the ground.
The crash remains one of the deadliest air disasters in US history.
An investigation found a that warning system had failed to alert pilots Captain John R. Maus, 57, and First Officer David J. Dodds, 35, that the plane was not configured properly for take-off.
Despite the horrific nature of the crash, somehow Cecelia’s body was thrown clear of the fuselage.
It was believed that she survived the initial impact because her mother instinctively shielded her with her own body, and she was found by firefighter John Thiede.
He said: “I heard that faint cry a baby doll makes.
“I looked to my right and I could see an arm, kind of bent, coming out of a chair.”
It was initially believed that the four-year-old was one of those injured on the ground until her grandfather came forward to identify the little girl by her chipped front tooth.
Dr Jai Prasad, the doctor who led the team which cared for the young girl, said at the time: “She understands that she has lost her father and her mother, and her brother.
“She understands that she was involved in an accident. But she doesn’t have any memory of how it happened.”
At the funeral of her parents and brother in St Alphonsus Church in Maple Glen, the Reverend Andrew Robberecht, who married the Cichans and baptised their two children, said: “Cecelia reminds us — and will always remind us — of the miracle of life.”
Cecelia became known as the miracle child and her story captivated the world.
She was sent thousands of gifts, cards and stuffed animals.
More than 2,000 presents and 30,000 cards were sent to the University of Michigan Medical Center but her guardians asked that they be distributed to local children’s hospitals.
The family also set up a trust fund after she received more than $150,000 in donations.
There was intense global interest in the little girl, which saw her feature on newspaper and magazine covers, but her uncle Franklin Lumpkin and her aunt Rita, her mother’s sister, kept her sheltered from the attention once she left hospital after seven weeks of treatment, allowing her to grow up in obscurity in Birmingham, Alabama.
Now, 25 years later, she has decided to tell her story as part of a new documentary called Sole Survivor featuring passengers who lived through plane crashes against all odds.
Cecelia said that she had finally decided to open up about the crash because the film was a group project “and that’s why I’m willing to get involved and be part of something bigger”.
Cecelia has kept in touch with the families of those who died in the 1987 crash – including her rescuer Lt Thiede.
He met her for the first time as an adult on her wedding day when he watched her walk down the aisle to become Cecelia Crocker.
He said: “To see her come down the aisle, my heart, I lost it really. Just to see her in person was something.”
Filmmaker Ky Dickens said: “Cecelia is an astounding person, a humble observer and an inspiring example of how one can pick up their life after a tragedy.”
The 25th anniversary of the Michigan crash will be commemorated by victims’ families today at the memorial site close to where the plane went down.
The black granite memorial was erected in 1994 and stands on a hill above the road where the passengers perished.
The names of all those who died are inscribed under a dove which holds a ribbon in its beak, inscribed with the words: “Their spirit still lives on.”
And nowhere does it live on stronger than in Cecelia, the miracle survivor of Flight 255.
