911 call recordings recorded Thursday after Dale Earnhardt, Jr.’s plane crashed in Elizabethton, Tennessee were released Friday and captured the initial eyewitness accounts of the fiery crash.
“I’ve had a plane roll off the runway. I need you to roll everything you can,” Elizabethton Municipal Airport manager Dan Cogan told 911 operators. “There’s going to be at least two pilots and one passengers but I don’t know.”
Former NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt, Jr., his wife, and their one-year-old child were flying from Statesville, North Carolina, to Tennessee ahead of NASCAR races in Bristol. They were being flown on their private plane by two pilots.
Another 911 callers described the anxious moments awaiting the first signs of life.
“No body is moving,” she told dispatchers as she waited for anyone to emerge from the burning aircraft.
Moments later, she continued. “They’re trying to get out now.”
“There’s a baby. One. Two. Three,” she continued as she counted the individuals exiting the aircraft. “Five people and a dog,” she finally concludes.
