PORTLAND, Ore. — At Portland International Airport, Maria Burkhart Briley picked up her bags after a 15-hour flight home from Malaysia. But it's what she unpacked half a world away that made the journey so remarkable.
"It was a life-changing trip. I feel like I have been trying to make this trip my whole life," Briley said.
The journey lightened the load of memories she'd carried for 46 years of another flight that nearly made this flight an impossibility.
"I remember people screaming and crying and the oxygen masks all dropping down. Bodies everywhere and screaming," she recalled.
Back in the safety of her North Portland home, Briley remembers Japan Airlines Flight 715. It crashed in bad weather on Sept. 27, 1977. Briley was on that plane with her parents, returning from the U.S. to their home in Malaysia.
"(The crash) was quite violent. The plane actually broke in half," she said.
Briley was a toddler at the time, not even 3 years old. She and her mother survived the crash, but 34 people died — including Briley's father, an electronics manager at a factory in Malaysia.
"She was still in her seat with my dad," Briley recalled, referring to her mother. "My dad had passed away from the crash."
Briley was sent back to the U.S. to recover. She never returned to Malaysia — that is, until her trip in mid-August of this year. It was a journey to see where she was born, where her father died, and to give thanks to a man who helped save her. It was a long-awaited reunion captured on Malaysian television.
Meeting for the first time since the crash 46 years earlier, Briley and Rajah Nadeswaran embraced.
"God had a hand in saving me and made sure Nades was in the right place at the right time," Briley told a Malaysian reporter.
She was referring to Nadeswaran, or "Nades" for short. In 1977, a young Nadeswaran was a part-time sportswriter typing up a story when the crash happened. With everyone else out on other assignments, Nadeswaran was sent to cover the crash.
He arrived at the scene before ambulances. A first responder handed him a young child who had been thrown clear of the wreckage and asked Nadeswaran to get her quickly to the hospital. He was holding little Maria Jean Burkhart — she'd been thrown from her mother's arms in the crash and onto a pile of rubber tree leaves.
"I was told to take this baby to the hospital. Water was dripping from the leaves of the trees around there, she was cold, and I covered Maria with my shirt. I had a bare body. When you look at the pictures, I have no shirt," Nadeswaran said.
Found family
Video of their reunion went viral in Malaysia. They spent several days together, including touring the crash site in Elmina Township about 6 kilometers from the town of Subang in Malaysia. At the time of the crash, it was a rubber tree plantation, but is now under development. However, the property owners saved pieces of the wreckage and showed them to Briley. She was the first survivor to return to the crash site.
At home in Portland, Briley shared video of her visit to the site.
"I never thought I'd see this. This is part of the seat (from the plane)," she said.
Briley thought about the people who died there; especially her father, who she never got to know.
"I was able to pay my respects in remembrance of those who didn't make it. I thought of my dad. It was overwhelming, intense, a spiritual moment. It definitely gives me some closure," she said.
Briley told Malaysian television that reuniting with Nadeswaran felt a bit like being with her father again.
"Yes, yes. My newfound daughter," Nadeswaran said.
Rajah Nadeswaran always wondered what happened to the little girl he carried to safety. He had checked in with her at the hospital after the crash and even brought her a teddy bear, but then lost track of her. He tried over the years to find her through American embassies.
"I tried very hard. I tried when I was at work once in New York, and again in Milwaukee, and once in California. They asked me what state she was in. I didn't know. They said there are a few thousand (with her name). I even went on genealogy sites, but I couldn't track her down," he said.
Briley was the one who finally found Nadeswaran. During the pandemic, she started thinking about how much she wanted to thank him.
"I was looking through clippings of the crash and thought I just really wanted to thank him. I think it was maturity at that point. I wanted to thank the person who saved me," she said.
She did a web search for his name and located him through a journalism class he was teaching. They started talking online and Briley began planning her trip to Malaysia to meet Nadeswaran in person.
Following their reunion, Nadeswaran and Briley have kept in frequent contact on Skype and WhatsApp, and she's already planning another visit to Malaysia to see him.
A fate-shaping moment
The crash of Japan Airlines Flight 715 changed both their lives. After covering the crash and helping rescue Maria Burkhart Briley, Nadeswaran would no longer be a part-time sportswriter barely making ends meet. He was promoted to a full-time news reporter covering big stories across the country, eventually becoming a famous and well-respected journalist in Malaysia.
"I created a niche market in investigative journalism," he said. "I pioneered it in Malaysia. I've been working very hard."
Briley's hands were badly burned in the crash. In the hospital, she dreaded when the nurses would come into her room to clean her damaged hands and scrub the dead skin off. Ironically, Briley became a nurse herself, and the hands that were badly burned would go on to help heal others.
She raised a son and helped support her mother, Salimah Burkhart, who now lives with her — all because a young sports reporter cared enough to carry a little girl to safety.
"I owe him my everlasting gratefulness for keeping me safe and keeping me healthy and making sure I made it. I made it through that," she said.
It's a bond born of tragedy that gave each new life, and years later, a treasured friendship.