FAIRHOPE, Ala. — Thirty years after surviving the plane crash that killed his best friend, Fairhope’s Scott Christmas crossed the finish line of the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii earlier this month, keeping a promise he made from a hospital bed in 1996. His Ironman journey is not quite over: the 57-year-old plans to carry his finisher’s medal to Arlington National Cemetery after running the Marine Corps Marathon later this month.
For Christmas, the 140.6-mile race was never only about endurance. It was about Owen Duke, the friend he called his brother, and about the long road back from a crash doctors did not expect him to survive.
A lifelong friendship
Christmas and Duke grew up together and were inseparable from childhood.
“I called him my brother,” Christmas said. “He was like my big brother growing up. We did everything together since we were little.”
Duke graduated from UMS-Wright Preparatory School in Mobile and went on to the U.S. Naval Academy, where he served as president of his class. He became a Marine Corps pilot. Christmas enrolled in ROTC at Auburn University, hoping to follow his friend into military service.
That plan ended abruptly.
“Those dreams were shattered when I was in an altercation in a bar and had my left eye slashed with a beer bottle,” Christmas said. “I lost the vision in my left eye, and that ended those dreams of following in his footsteps.”
Duke’s career took him around the world and eventually to Hawaii, where he was stationed and grew to love the islands. Christmas stayed in Lower Alabama, where in 1993 he walked away from a small plane crash.
The crash at Weeks Bay
Three years later, Christmas would survive another crash. This time, his best friend did not.
Duke was home on leave and had been traveling the country in a seaplane he had purchased. On July 15, 1996, the two friends took off together from Weeks Bay, the shallow estuary in south Baldwin County where the Fish and Magnolia rivers meet before flowing into Mobile Bay.
“We took off, and at about 1,000 feet we stalled out and rolled it over and went straight down into about six feet of water at about 100 miles an hour,” Christmas recalled. “Just straight in. Drilled it.”
Duke was killed, and his body was recovered from Weeks Bay. Christmas was flown by helicopter to Mobile with devastating injuries: a broken back, wrist and foot, a ruptured spleen, damage to his kidneys and liver, a severed aorta and chemical burns over 80% of his body. Doctors gave him less than a 5% chance of surviving.
He was in a coma when Duke was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.
A promise made in recovery
When Christmas regained consciousness, he made several promises to his fallen friend. One rose above the rest.
“I promised that I’d never go to Hawaii where he was stationed and absolutely loved, until I could do the Hawaiian Ironman — the world championship — and take that finisher medal back to Arlington.”
The Ironman World Championship is among the most demanding single-day endurance events in the world. Athletes swim 2.4 miles in the open ocean, ride 112 miles on a bicycle and finish with a full 26.2-mile marathon, a total of 140.6 miles that must be completed within strict time limits. The race began in Hawaii in 1978 and moved to Kailua-Kona on the Big Island in 1981, where its course through lava fields, heat and strong winds became famous among triathletes. For several recent years the championship was split between Kona and Nice, France, but beginning in 2026 it returned to Kona as a single-day race for all athletes.
Grief, delay and two angels
An avid runner and cyclist for most of his life, Christmas said he might have kept his promise sooner, but more hardship lay ahead. His wife, Amy, was diagnosed with cancer and died in 2017.
“When you lose somebody, they’re forever part of your fabric and your soul,” Christmas said. “To have lost Owen 30 years ago this past July, there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about him. And fast forward to nine years ago, my wife, there’s not a day I don’t think about her. It’s hard to fathom that I lost my best friend and then the love of my life.”
He carries both of them with him. Christmas has a tattoo on each calf, one honoring Duke and the other honoring Amy.
Before leaving for Hawaii, he described what the race would mean.
“To have two angels carrying me down the road is pretty powerful,” Christmas said. “In the end [it will be] me and my two angels spending 140.6 miles together, suffering and crossing the finish line with them.”
Training on the Eastern Shore
Christmas spent the summer and early fall preparing for the championship close to home. He swam in Mobile Bay and logged running and cycling miles along the Eastern Shore, the string of bayside communities that includes Fairhope, Daphne and Point Clear.
Throughout those months of training, he said, Duke was always on his mind. The open-water swims in the bay, the long rides and runs under the Gulf Coast sun all built toward a single goal: reaching the finish line in Kona and earning the medal he had promised to deliver.
Earlier this month, he did exactly that, completing the race on the island where his friend had been stationed and that Duke had loved so much.
One final salute
Christmas still has one more mission. Next week, he will travel to Washington, D.C., to run the Marine Corps Marathon, wearing his Ironman finisher’s medal along the course. The 2026 race is scheduled for Sunday, Oct. 25.
Known as “The People’s Marathon,” the Marine Corps Marathon is organized by the U.S. Marine Corps and winds past many of the capital region’s landmarks. It finishes in Arlington, Virginia, near the Marine Corps War Memorial, just steps from Arlington National Cemetery, where Duke is buried.
After the race, Christmas plans to bring both medals to his friend’s grave.
“I’ll go to the Marine Corps Marathon and run with that medal, and take it and the Marine Corps Marathon medal and walk over for one final salute,” he said. “Mission accomplished!”
For a man once given less than a 5% chance of living, the walk from the finish line to his best friend’s resting place will close a 30-year chapter defined by loss, survival and loyalty, and by a promise he refused to let go.
