Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 23, 1995 TAG: 9508230078
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ANNE GEARAN ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LEESBURG LENGTH: Medium
Charlie Barton rushed around the crumpled, smoking shell of a commuter plane, looking for his friend and co-worker, who like Barton was burned when the plane crash-landed in a Georgia hayfield.
``Are you OK?'' Barton asked fellow Loudoun County Deputy Sheriff Tod Thompson when he finally found him. Then Barton, with burns on 90 percent of his body, collapsed.
Barton died early Tuesday, the fifth fatality of Monday's Atlantic Southeast Airlines commuter flight near Atlanta. Thompson and two other Virginians on the airplane suffered only minor injuries.
``His first concern was for Tod, and that didn't surprise me at all,'' Loudoun County Sheriff John R. Isom said.
Barton hunted bad guys for a living. He and Thompson had just left Atlanta on the second leg of their trip to pick up a Virginia fugitive jailed in Gulfport, Miss., when the plane crashed. Twenty-four passengers were injured.
``I can remember on several occasions when his life was in extreme danger from gunfire, a riot even,'' said Isom, who knew Barton for nearly 30 years. ``He came through all of that to end up in this airplane crash. You always know the risk is there ... but you never know when it's going to happen, or who it's going to happen to.''
Barton's wife of 34 years, Masil, declined to talk to reporters Tuesday. She had planned to fly with Isom to Atlanta early Tuesday to see Barton.
``I was sitting on the edge of the bed at 3:30 this morning, because I hadn't been to bed yet, when I got the call that said he had not made it,'' Isom said.
Barton's friends and family knew he was in grave danger because of the severity of his burns. But initial reports of his injuries were more encouraging, department spokesman Darryl DeBow said.
``It was difficult after we had our hopes up,'' he said.
Barton, 57, and Thompson, 33, were sitting next to each other, but were separated in the confusion after the plane hit on its belly and broke into pieces.
Thompson paused a few seconds to grab his luggage before fleeing, a delay that may have saved his life, Isom said.
``Charlie just ran right into the flash'' of flames as the fuselage ignited, Isom said.
Barton is apparently the only officer killed in the line of duty in Loudoun since the sheriff's office opened there in 1757, Isom said.
He was a jocular, outgoing man who was very popular among the 173 deputies and was president of the department's service league, Isom said.
``[Barton] took great pride in his work, although sometimes he said he hated it,'' said Buddy Colby, Barton's next-door neighbor in Purcellville.
``It was just all the flying all the time and being gone so much. I don't think the flying scared him or nothing, but I know it was hard to be away from home so much like he was.''
Isom said Barton averaged one long-distance trip a week.
Barton was the one-man ``fugitive squad,'' who hunted down suspects outside the county.
His job was part gumshoe, part enforcer and part sweet-talker, several who worked with him said.
Jason Aleshire, 18, of Waynesboro, an Air Force airman on his way to his first permanent duty assignment at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Miss. was on the flight.
Aleshire told his parents that he removed a shirt that was soaked with airplane fuel after the crash.
Aleshire and Air Force Maj. Chuck LeMay bolted from the plane after it crashed, but began helping others to safety.
``Then they looked over their shoulders and realized there were people burning behind them, so they went back to help,'' said Aleshire's father, James Aleshire. ``They got about eight people out.''
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB