On July 19, 1989 a Douglas DC-10 carrying United Airlines flight 232 crashed at the Sioux Gateway Airport killing 111 passengers and one flight attendant. But due to efforts by the pilot and his crew, 185 on board survived. The airport had a full-time Air National Guard base located on it that provided 'First Recovery' fire fighters and approx 200 air guardsmen to aid in the search for survivors in the fields of corn surrounding the main fuselage section of the aircraft. They were further aided by the advanced disaster training that the city had recently completed for its emergency workers. This event was memorialized in a made-for-TV movie "Crash Landing - the Rescue of Flight 232" starring Charlton Heston as Captain Al Haynes in 1991.