A priest who is the brother of the pilot of an airplane that crashed and broke in two without any fatalities gives testimony about the intercession of St. Joseph, the Universal Patron of the Church. At the time of the accident, the priest had been dedicating 30 days of prayer to ask the saint’s intercession for “impossible causes.” The priest says, “St. Joseph has great power before the Throne of God.”
The accident: 99 people on board and no deaths
The serious accident occurred on March 30, 1992, in Spain. Earlier that evening, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9 Aviaco aircraft took off from Madrid for Granada, in the south of the country: flight 231. During the landing, there was heavy rain and strong gusts of wind. Due to a particularly powerful downward gust, the landing gear hit the ground with great force, causing the plane to bounce and fall back onto the runway, splitting into two parts which ended up breaking apart completely as the aircraft slid at high speed down the runway.
Despite the violence of the crash, and the fact that the two halves of the plane scraped to a stop about 100 yards apart, all 94 passengers and 5 crew members survived. Of the total 99 occupants of the plane, 26 people had injuries, one of them in serious condition. However, all recovered. The case was described as “the miracle plane.”
The pilot, Jaime Mazarrasa, was the brother of a priest, Fr. Gonzalo, who was studying in Rome at the time. According to an article published by the Catholic news agency ACI Prensa, based in turn on a statement published on the Hozana social network for prayer, Fr. Gonzalo testified about the episode:
I was studying in Rome in 1992 and living at the Spanish College of St. Joseph, which was celebrating its centennial that year (…) I was finishing a 30-day prayer to ask the Holy Patriarch for ‘impossible things,’ when a plane broke in two upon landing in a city in Spain with almost a hundred people on board. The pilot was my brother. Only one person was seriously injured, who later recovered. That day, I knew that Saint Joseph has great power before the Throne of God.”
The Spanish priest continued:
This year, I made the 30-day prayer to the Spouse of Mary again this March. I’ve been doing this prayer for 30 years now, and he has never let me down. On the contrary, he has always far exceeded my hopes. I know in whom I trust. To enter this world, God only needed a woman. But it was also necessary that a man should take care of her and His Son, and God chose a son of the House of David: Joseph, the Spouse of Mary, from whom Jesus, called Christ, was born.
If you too would like to pray the 30-day prayer to St. Joseph during this year dedicated to him, you can find it here.
Read more:
What all fathers can learn from St. Joseph
