While many Americans were gearing up for a little Super Bowl Sunday football, Jerald Dewitt was experiencing one of the most harrowing moments of his life.

Dewitt, an employee of Iowa State’s agricultural extension office for nearly 25 years, boarded United Airlines Flight 735 from Chicago’s O’Hare Airport to Des Moines at 8:10 a.m. on Jan. 25. He had been traveling on business and was looking forward to a relaxing flight home.

Dewitt was one of two passengers in first class, and he estimated there were around 25 to 30 people on the plane. He also noted that the weather was foggy, but he said he did not think much of that at the time.

Nearly eight minutes into the flight, the seemingly impossible happened.

“I first noted that after 7-8 minutes, it seemed as if we were turned the wrong direction,” DeWitt said. His fears were confirmed when he heard the pilot’s terse message that flight attendants should prepare for an emergency landing and evacuation.

Dewitt, who had a front-seat view of the panic that occurred, said he saw two flight attendants were leafing frantically through an instruction book.

“One of the attendants could only say, ‘Oh my God,'” Dewitt said. “My confidence was not building at the moment.”

As the plane continued to turn back toward the airport, the attendant immediately began to read aloud the instruction book. Dewitt said he and fellow passengers were told they were going to have to go through a “short-stop landing,” and that the most important thing they could leave the plane with was their lives, not their possessions.

“[One of the attendants] was taking a big breath and continued to read,” Dewitt said, adding that she had to take several deep breaths during her reading. The passengers were informed that just before the landing, they would have to get in the “brace position.”

One of the attendants then told Dewitt she might need his help in getting one of the two doors at the front of the plane open after the landing. Dewitt said the whole process up to this point had taken only four or five minutes.

“I really began to worry how I was going to open [the door],” he said. “I was glad I had easy access to a door so that if I survived, I was going to be able to get off the plane and help people.”

The attendant then strapped herself into the seat next to Dewitt. He said she crossed her heart and prayed while they waited for the landing.

Dewitt said the passengers had been incredibly silent, but as the time for the emergency landing approached, he could hear signs of “distress” like moaning and praying.

The flight attendant near Dewitt started screaming “Brace!,” while the attendant in the back was yelling “Brace and pray!”

“The last 40 seconds were tough,” Dewitt said, adding that he kept wondering if the plane was going to hit and how it was going to hit.

Dewitt recalled a belief that if he survived the landing, he would get out somehow.

“I was worried, [but] convinced I was going to get out, if I wasn’t killed in impact,” Dewitt said. He said he did not feel panic, but a sense of determination to survive.

Dewitt said his thoughts turned to his sons, one of whom is a junior at ISU, and his wife, whom he called right before his flight.

“My wife — I usually don’t call her in between flights. I told her I was back safely,” he said, adding that during the time before the landing, he was thinking, “I was glad I called Kathy and told her I loved her.”

He said the plane “hit hard, but not unduly hard,” and the nose came down immediately afterwards. He did not receive the signal to help the attendant open the doors.

The plane, which landed on a runway far from the O’Hare terminal, ran for a few minutes, causing Dewitt to believe there was a problem with the brakes. Eventually, the plane stopped, and the passengers and attendants were greeted with “red, flashing lights.”

Dewitt later learned there had been a false indicator of a fire on the plane.

“It was the most exciting seconds of false alarm in my life,” Dewitt said. As he was awaiting the landing, he said, he was very worried about the sound of the crash.

“I guess at that moment, inconsequential terror has seeped into you,” he said. “It absolutely drains one, mentally and physically. I know afterwards, I just sat there in my seat.”

Later, 40 minutes after one of the most terrifying moments of his life, Dewitt was back on an United Airlines flight to Des Moines. He said United Airlines gave him a coupon for a free coffee and snack for his flight.

“That wasn’t the top of my list of needs,” he joked, adding that he didn’t lose his luggage on the flight.

Dewitt said the only passenger with whom he has spoken about the accident was a woman who looked at him while they were boarding their flight immediately after the emergency landing. She looked at Dewitt, and solemnly asked, “Were you scared, too?”

Dewitt said his son was home when he returned, and he said telling his son what he had just experienced was an “emotional” moment.

Near the end of their conversation, he said, he joked about the situation, saying that his son wouldn’t have had to worry about college tuition since he would have had his father’s life insurance policy.

“He said, ‘I’m glad you’re here, and the money’s not,'” Dewitt said.

Dewitt said when he told his wife about his experience, she could hardly speak. He said when talking to a loved one 900 miles away about “how you thought you were going to die, AT&T doesn’t cut it.”

Dewitt has had some difficult weeks since the incident. He said he has had nightmares, and he said it is still difficult to talk about what happened.

He has flown between 8 and 10 times since the plane landing, but the incident has “taken the fun out of flying.” Nevertheless, he said he will not stop flying, since it is such an integral part of his job, but “you won’t see a smile on my face.”

As for his outlook on life after his near-death incident, he said now gets less excited about relatively trivial matters as he might have before the plane landing.

“There are important things, and really important things,” Dewitt said. “Some things don’t cut it anymore.”