Six-year-old Georgia Hotz was asleep when it happened. The first thing she remembers after the 1.52am take-off was waking up – half an hour later – with a blanket covering her head. Her parents had placed it there in a feeble effort to protect her.

As she peeled it away, she took in a scene from most people’s worst nightmares.

Paul and Susan Hotz and their daughter Georgia Meyerson with a copy of a story from 1989 detailing their miraculous escape. Credit:Cole Bennetts

Georgia was on United Airlines flight 811 from Honolulu to Sydney on February 24, 1989, with her parents Paul and Susan. As the plane climbed to cruising altitude, the locks on its cargo door failed, blowing it open with such force it smashed a massive hole, 10 metres across, in the fuselage.

Nine passengers sitting in the downstairs business class section near the Hotz family were sucked out of the plane to their deaths. The overhead lockers were also pulled from the plane. The cabin plunged into darkness.