Mother of four survives plane crash at Addison Airport after nosedive

ADDISON, Texas - A Fort Worth mother of four says what was supposed to be a magical experience with her husband turned into a nightmare that nearly killed her.

The small plane she was in crashed at Addison Airport during a demonstration ride in March while her husband looked on in shock. Miraculously, the two people on board survived.

And it's been a very difficult road to recovery for Sheema Shaik. Over the last three months, she has undergone six surgeries and still lives full-time in a rehab facility.

“Only thing I remember is just pain,” she recalled. “I was in pain.”

Shaik saw the inside of her own home recently for only the second time since the afternoon of March 10. She and her husband, Touseef Siddiqui, were excited for a small plane demonstration ride. She remembers the pilot lifting off. It was captured on airport surveillance cameras.

“The last thing I remember, the plane was going down on the left side,” she recalled.

After that, Shaik’s memory goes blank. The plane in a heap on the ground was also captured on the airport cameras.

‘She took a U-turn and then went down,” Siddiqui recalled. “I thought they did some kind of maneuver that airplanes do, and I thought that was the case.”

Shaik's husband was waiting to take off behind her in with a pilot in another plane. He looked on horrified and in disbelief about what had happened to the mother of his four young children.

Witnesses said it appeared the plane did a nose dive from about 1,200 feet.

“I was praying and waiting for her to run towards me,” he recalled. “But in the meantime, they put her in a stretcher and the chopper was there. I started running towards her, but they stopped me and said I cannot come.”

The FAA says the sports cruiser had just departed southbound when the pilot attempted to turn around and land on the runway in the opposite direction.

“A lot of what the NTSB is looking at is the same as what my law firm is looking at. They have the exact same questions that I do,” said Ron McCallum, an aviation attorney. “I need to be able to connect for my client specifically what happened and why we had the partial power loss or the need for the emergency before the crash actually happened.”

Shaik says in addition to internal injuries, she numerous broken bones that required pins and a spinal fusion. She says the most painful thing is being away from her children, especially the little ones who can't understand.

“They were not even coming near me. They don't come to me,” she said. “It's a very bad feeling. Your two little ones, they don't come to you.”

It's still unclear when Shaik will be able to return home permanently.

Their attorney says the take-home message for anyone considering a demonstration flight is to be sure to ask about the experience level of instructor or pilot. He recommends sitting the in the briefing room and watching them perform all pre-flight duties and even ask to see a copy of the insurance policy.