Allan Thomas, a 1958 graduate of Cheltenham High School, grew up on Jefferson Avenue in Cheltenham Village and worked part-time at the Penn Fruit.

According to local historian Chuck Langerman, Thomas loved to drive his 1947 Chevy, so it came as no surprise to his friends when he became a Greyhound bus driver.

Mr. Thomas especially enjoyed traveling the eastern seaboard from Canada to Florida, and on March 23, 1978, he became a national hero while driving his bus from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia.

During the route, a single-engine plane crashed in front of his bus into a dirt embankment along the Pennsylvania Turnpike near the Morgantown interchange. Thomas pulled his bus over to the side and ran over to the burning plane, pulling the pilot and his eight-year-old daughter from the plane to safety.

Next, he used the fire extinguisher in his bus to fight the burning wreckage shortly before the fire trucks and ambulances arrived.

For his heroism, he was honored in a special ceremony in the Office of State Transportation in Harrisburg.

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