USAir Flight 1016 crashed in Charlotte 30 years ago

Today, a memorial for USAir Flight 1016 stands at the new Charlotte Douglas Airport overlook . It honors the people who died on board the flight from Columbia, S.C. to Charlotte on July 2, 1994.

Why it matters: "Airplanes don't fly nearly as much into thunderstorms as they used to, as a result of the accident," former Charlotte Douglas International Airport aviation director, Jerry Orr , said in 2004.

Flashback: "The plane broke into three parts, and burst into flames," Charlotte Observer writer David Perlmutt wrote in 2004.

• Capt. Michael R. Greenlee equated the fall to "a rug being pulled out from under you," when he testified about the crash in September 1994.

State of play: It's been 30 years since the crash. Thirty years since 37 of the 57 people onboard died. But people in Charlotte have not forgotten.

• Over the years, people have brought flowers, poems, small crosses and other tokens to Old Dowd and Wallace Neel roads where the crash happened.
• The new airport overlook memorial was designed to represent Morse code for CAE (Columbia) and CLT, the origin and destination airports for the flight. It includes a plaque in memory of those who died or were injured and those who helped rescue efforts.