At a half-hour special meeting on Thursday, March 26, John Thiede, who is retiring as a full-time captain from the Romulus Fire Department, was unanimously approved at the city’s new fire chief.
A committee consisting of Belleville public safety director Kris Faull and two fire professionals interviewed and scored seven of the nine who had originally applied for the position. The committee agreed on the top score for Thiede on the second round of interviews and recommended him to the council.
Director Faull said Thiede has 40 years of fire experience and had been a union official, actor, sports broadcaster and owns the Hook & Ladder Theatre Company in Romulus. She said he also has the reputation of being a comedian.
As a rookie fire fighter in 1987, he is credited with pulling the only survivor – a four-year-old girl — out of the wreckage of Northwest Flight 255 near Metro Airport. He said he has stayed in contact with her over the years and attended her wedding in Texas.
In other business at the brief meeting, a representative of Plante Moran presented a proposal on water and sewer rates. No action was taken. At the council’s March 16 meeting, a representative of Waterworth gave a lengthy zoom presentation on a proposal on water rates.
An agenda item to accept an offer on the sale of the city’s Savage Road property was deferred.
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The last two months have included Editorials reminding readers of Belleville – Area Independent reporting as important checks on matters governmental and legal.
Respectfully, however, I would submit the subject of this Comment as call for yet another important category.
When was the last time you thought about Northwest Flight 255 from 1987?
That August 16 disaster occurred significantly prior to publication of the first issue of this paper. So we don’t have benefit of looking back through microfilm archives at our fine downtown library, in hopes of unearthing local perspective à la Rosemary K Otzman, then plus or minus age fifty.
We have official findings from the National Transportation Safety Board investigation, of course. Its 137-page report was issued May 10, 1988. At around a quarter-to-nine on the evening in question, NWA 255 crashed shortly after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport. Of the 149 passengers onboard, only one survived. All six crewmembers were also killed, plus two more impacted on the ground; another five were injured.
“Pilot error.”
I was freelancing for “wire services” at the time. There was a solid market for photographs captured by professionals already on the ground, figured more cost effective than sending in their own teams to cover breaking news.
Not so for something this big. Major outlets weren’t about to delegate the telling of this story, their way.
On the seventh anniversary of the tragedy, families of those who had been lost unveiled a permanent memorial erected on an embankment south of eastbound I-94. It overlooks the debris field area, if not, I suppose, itself resting on hallowed ground. You can easily see that marker this time of year from where the stoplight at the end of that expressway exit intersects Middlebelt Road. I was out there again earlier this week.
Sadly, certain corners of social media are replete these days with complaints about lack of parking for those who’d like to take a look at it themselves, up-close.
The “four-year-old girl” who in 1987 then-rookie fire fighter John Thiede pulled from the wreckage of Northwest Flight 255 was Cecelia Crocker (née Cichan). Our incoming Chief was twenty-one years old back then — younger than Rosemary and younger than me. Here in 2026, Cecelia herself is old enough to be the mother of a twenty-one-year-old.
On August 18, 1987, The New York Times reported that she had been identified by her paternal grandfather, Tony Chichan, age fifty-nine. He had flown into Detroit after having made contact with C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital in Ann Arbor with descriptions of a “chipped tooth” and “nail polish” color to identify his grandaughter.
“The Miracle Girl,” as I remember her having been been called, didn’t speak broadly about the day she was rescued until relatively recently, perhaps a dozen or so years ago. That’s when she featured importantly in a Ky Dickens film titled Sole Survivor.
On screen, the NWA 255 survivor recalled having heard “Broken Wings” by Phoenix-based rock group Mr Mister. It played on the car radio and she was with her mother. Processing lyrics through a 3-year-old brain, she asked if “the bird” in that song got better.
“Yes, yes,” her mother assured. “He got better.”
It’s no surprise that some outlet would revisit an aspect of this story with an update on the only person to have experienced it in total. It’s an obvious niche.
But what of that firefighter, now four decades later? In short, see April 2 write-up, above.
Not too long ago, Rosemary emphasized to me that the Belleville – Area Independent is a “local, local” newspaper. In the current print edition (still on stands throughout the Tri-Community), she once again opines on its value viz government and law foci.
The subject of this Comment is neither — hence my suggestion that an expanded consideration of categories be embraced. The substance of that is already here; I, for one, couldn’t be happier that it is.
Suggestions? I dunno: “History”? “Airlines”? “Songs from the 1980s, as explained by your mother”?
What I do know is that this local newspaper is the place where I learned that I’m not just getting a new fire chief. I’m getting another option for a future date-night with Mrs Dell Deaton, thanks to the Hook & Ladder Theatre Company owned by John Thiede!