Impossible Recovery after Fiery Plane Crash

Airplane Radio Chatter, “November 150 Papa. Taking off runway 1-7 for the pattern and 1-3.”

It was 7:45 am. Chris was taking his new plane for a test flight to the Brownwood Regional Airport in Texas.

Chris recounts, “Sweet little flight, no wind. As I was making my descent, I felt a little bump in the seat, and I know Holy Spirit said, ‘Chris, you lost power.’”

Christ continues, “I reached down to shove the throttle forward to go full power and nothing.  I had nothing. And the engine went quiet.

Chris tried to restart the engine but it wouldn't turn over. What he didn’t know was that his fuel pump had failed.

Chris says, “When I dipped below the horizon and I realized I was going to crash I said out loud, ‘Here we go!’ And I was talking to the Lord.”

Chris’s friend Floyd was on the tarmac when he saw the explosion in the distance.

Floyd remembers, “It was at least four to 500 feet in the air.  Huge fireball. As I began to run towards the crash site, I was also praying and I said, ‘you're not – Chris is not finished. You're not finished with Chris.’”

Operator, “Brownwood 911?”

Caller, “Uh yeah, we’re at Brownwood Regional Airport there’s been an aircraft that has gone into the ground.”

EMS Steven Stone responded to the call.

Steven remembers, “We saw the black smoke coming up. I would have never said that anybody would have walked away from it.”

Chris says, “When I pushed the door open, I heard glass break, I heard metal bend, and that's when everything went orange.”

Steven recalls, “He was walking over to us, which I thought was miraculous… he just looked like he'd just walked out of the flames.”

Chris was quickly transported to the nearest hospital. He called his wife Dot from the ambulance.

Dot remembers, “He said, ‘I crashed my plane, and I’m not hurt very bad.’ His ambulance driver grabbed the phone away from him and said, ‘Miss Hall, Chris is hurt really bad and we're going to be Care Flighting him to Parkland Hospital.’”

As Dot rushed to the hospital, she called their son.

Dot says, “We were both praying, you know, that no weapon formed against Chris will prosper and that he will live and not die and that his body would be totally healed.”

When Dot arrived, doctors were preparing to intubate Chris and admit him to ICU.

Dot remembers, “His head was swollen twice the size, and he was burned really, really bad. So to see Chris like that was… very hard.”

Chris recalls, “She said, ‘Hi, Babe’ and I was just like – it was like a voice from heaven. I was that happy that she was there.”

Chris was stabilized and found to have no broken bones or internal injuries. The concern was the number of skin grafts required to heal the 2nd and 3rd degree burns covering over 20 percent of his body.

Dot remembers, “The doctors took me out in the hallway and I asked them ‘What are we looking at?’ they said, ‘You're going to be here for months’. I just thought ‘God's bigger than that.’ And so I just took off by myself down the hallway, just said, ‘Lord, you know, what-what do you say about this?’ And I just felt like He spoke to me and said, uh ‘Two weeks. You'll be here for two weeks."  

Dot, their sons, family members, and several close friends prayed for Chris’s full recovery.

Dot says, “We would lay our hands on Chris in ICU and we would say, ‘Chris, be healed.’”    

Chris remembers, “Aww, it felt awesome to have people agreeing in prayer.  I was laying there – I – the only thing that I had was the presence of God.  I didn't have anything else.”

Two weeks to the day, doctors permitted Chris to leave.

Dot recalls, “It felt amazing to me to know that God had heard my prayers.”

Chris recounts, “As we were driving up the driveway… I lost it. I knew I was home and that was… It still touches me.”

After 3 months of treatment, Chris was back on his feet. Today, he and his wife Dot minister at churches around the country and share their story of answered prayer.

Dot says, “There's nothing Chris can't do today that he's always been able to do.”
 
Floyd explains, “There's no question uh but what the hand of God was on Chris.”

Chris says, “Believe God before the fire.  Don't wait till something like this has to happen to get you to believe.”