Honestly, the whole thing is reminiscent of Hillary running for cover while dodging sniper fire in Bosnia. Turns out the "snipers" were young girls handing her a poem and flowers on the runway.
I'm sure that's what she believes, but I'd bet the:
"... an engine blew up, right wing caught on fire at the other end, and crash landed in flames in a cornfield. The whole plane was in flames"
was really an engine failed and was shut down. They landed the plane as a precaution and the pilot sprayed a fire extinguisher into the smoking engine nacelle once stopped.
Face it, to a novice, any unscheduled emergency landing and smoke could be "remembered" as a screaming, spiraling, flaming dive to the tarmac, particularly if the person was also well lubricated at the time..
Seems to me that even a C-lister like Abdul would have gotten a nationwide story and a Star and Enquirer feature for something that dramatic.
Paula's story definitely seems fabricated. Let's face it every detail she gives DOES NOT check out. She says she crashed in a cornfield in Iowa, even though it's a straight shot from St. Louis to Denver(which is across Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, NOT Iowa). She says she hit her head on the ceiling, got a concussion, which is why she disappeared for 7 years. This was supposed to have happened in June, 1992, however she came out with an album that she promoted in 1995. That album, Head over Heals, bombed badly. She has also said the crash happened in 1993, even though her tour ended in 1992. There even documentation proof that she performed in a concert in Kansas City AFTER her concert in St. Louis. She says she had 15 spinal surgeries since the "accident". Comeon, give me a break!
The real truth? Paula ended her lackluster tour in summer 1992. She tried to keep her career going by releasing an album in 1995 but that bombed badly. She couldn't tour because she was then a has been. She has admitted she was addicted to pills from 1997-2009 and very likely before. In short, she's made up a cockamamie story too soothe her own ego! Never happened!