By John Springer
Court TV

NEW YORK — The New York-bound shuttle bounced lightly onto a runway at LaGuardia Airport after a short, uneventful flight from Boston. Businessman Mike Schimmel got off the airplane and headed toward ground transportation, eager to board an airport shuttle to his mother's home on Long Island.

It was four days after Christmas in 1975, and LaGuardia was teeming with holiday travelers like Schimmel who were looking forward to ringing in the New Year with loved ones.

Americans had a lot to toast as the year drew to a close. The Vietnam War, which severely divided the country, finally ended. President Gerald Ford had escaped two assassination attempts. Watergate was becoming water under the bridge and democracy, American-style, would celebrate its 200th birthday soon.

But none of that was on Schimmel's mind as he ducked into a crowded limo in front of the Eastern Shuttle Terminal at about 6:30 p.m. on that chilly Monday night on Dec. 29.

Workers examine the damage near the TWA terminal's baggage claim.

"We were full and ended up stopping in front of the TWA terminal," recalled Schimmel, then 27. "A second, larger limo pulled up next to us and double-parked. We were told to get into the bigger car."

Schimmel got inside the second car and had just slammed the door shut when it happened.

A bright blue flash. A blast of air. Deafening noise. Broken glass rained down.

Momentarily dazed, Schimmel looked around him and saw that no one inside the limo was hurt. The driver, however, had been on a pay phone outside the car. He now lay on the ground, bleeding from the neck.

The occupants of the larger shuttle got out and surveyed the smaller limo. It was destroyed, but its curbside location had provided a buffer that saved the lives of everyone in the larger, double-parked vehicle.

A plane must have crashed, Schimmel thought as he entered the darkened terminal.

Inside, water spewed from broken pipes. Electrical wire and broken sections of the ceiling that weren't already on the floor hung precariously. The odor of gun powder filled the air.

"I walked into the terminal maybe 15 feet. It was black and full of smoke," said Schimmel, who now lives in New Jersey. "A girl, a young lady in her 20s, popped out of the smoke. I said something like, 'You'll be all right' and carried her out. Her coat was smoking and she was blackened."

A severed foot was visible on a ledge and Schimmel immediately surmised that many people lay dead or injured somewhere beyond the smoke that filled his eyes.

He was right about that. But it was a bomb — not a plane crash — that caused the carnage in Queens, New York, that night 27 years ago.