GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) The Mackinac Bridge isn’t just a piece of infrastructure. It’s a symbol that represents the great state of Michigan and a true feat of engineering.

The bridge runs for 5 miles, the top of the main towers stand 552 feet above the Straits of Mackinac and the bridge itself weighs more than 1 million tons. But most importantly, it was built to withstand the strongest winds and weather conditions the straits could throw at it.

Nearly 70 years later, the Mighty Mac still stands tall, but that doesn’t mean the bridge hasn’t had its share of deadly misfortune.

Five people died during construction, a surprisingly small number given the size of the project, experts say. Another maintenance worker died in a fall decades later. And, like so many other landmarks, the bridge unfortunately has seen its share of deaths by suicide.

Only one incident has ever called the bridge’s design into question and it was quickly debunked by investigators.

Monday marks the 36th anniversary of that incident: The day a car was allegedly “blown” off the Mackinac Bridge.

Sept. 22, 1989

Michigan woke up to astonishing headlines on that Saturday. The Grand Rapids Press had the news pinned on the front page, “Car plunges of Mackinac Bridge; waves halt search.”

While the car, a blue 1987 Yugo, sat at the bottom of the straits, readers from Michigan and beyond imagined what actually happened. The few eyewitnesses who saw the crash claimed that the car was “pushed out of control by winds.”

It was a rainy and windy night. And a Yugo is such a small car. It’s not totally unrealistic, right?

But like so many things in life, the story is more complicated than that. Yes, the car fell from the bridge, but it wasn’t simply blown off, like so many initially believed.

The driver and sole occupant of the vehicle was 31-year-old Leslie Pluhar, a waitress from Royal Oak who was traveling to the Upper Peninsula to visit her boyfriend.

The wind certainly could have complicated things, but investigators determined speed was the primary factor. At the time of the crash, gusts were measured up to 48 mph. Investigators also ruled that Pluhar was likely traveling at more than 60 mph, well above the bridge’s 45 mph speed limit.

Walter North, then the superintendent of the Mackinac Bridge Authority, told The Grand Rapids Press that Pluhar was reportedly “passing a vehicle on the inside lane and apparently overcorrected as it came back in, sending it off the bridge.”

The crash happened about 500 feet past the bridge’s south tower, near the middle of the span. The car reportedly hopped the curb and cleared the 3-foot-tall steel rail.

“There is no hole in the railing,” MSP Sgt. Kenneth Hardy told the Press. “It was awfully difficult to go over, but somehow they did.”

Those same winds also kept crews from being able to recover Pluhar and her vehicle. Multiple searches in the straits had to be aborted because of high winds and waves. It wasn’t until Sept. 30, eight days later, that a salvage crew was finally able to bring the car back up to the surface. Pluhar’s remains were found inside.

Autopsy results found slight traces of a few drugs in Pluhar’s body at the time of the crash, but nothing that would have played a factor. She had a blood-alcohol level of 0.01, well short of the state’s safety limit. She also had traces of caffeine and nicotine in her body. Really, it just illustrates the typical day she had before the bizarre accident.

“(She) probably had a cup of coffee and a cigarette the day she died,” one of the health experts told reporters.

The autopsy also provided some of the more unsavory details of Pluhar’s death. They were able to determine that she survived the 170-foot drop.

“(Pluhar) suffered severe head and chest injuries but was alive when her car slammed into the water,” the Associated Press reported. “However, she probably was unconscious as the car sank 150 feet to the bottom of the straits, the autopsy disclosed.”

Mackinac Bridge safety

The Mackinac Bridge Authority notes that more than 200 million vehicles have crossed the bridge since it opened. Only two have gone over the railing, and one of those crashes was clearly on purpose.

“Both incidents were terrible tragedies but were not the result of wind blowing vehicles off the bridge,” the MBA says on its website. “The hazards of high winds, however, are why we issue advisories and close the bridge during extreme wind events.”

Whenever winds exceed 20 miles per hour, a 20-mph speed limit is placed on “high-profile vehicles” like RVs and trailers. All high-profile vehicles are escorted across the bridge if winds ever crack 35 mph to ensure they follow the speed limit, and the bridge is closed to high-profile vehicles if the winds ever break 50 mph. The bridge is closed to all traffic when wind reaches 65 mph.

“The current procedures were developed primarily through years of experience, learning what wind speeds cause issues for particular vehicles,” the MBA said. “We’ve learned lessons from previous incidents and improved the devices we use to measure the wind.”