New York Airport: Final Moments

Swiss Air Flight 111: 2 September 1998

`We watched these people say goodbye'

NEW YORK (CP) - A few nervous flyers bought flight insurance before the departure of Swissair Flight 111. Several others kissed wives and kids goodbye at curbside. One left a generous tip and heartfelt thanks with a grateful sky cap.

Service clerks look after thousands of passengers every day at John F. Kennedy International airport. The 215 passengers who boarded Flight 111 on Wednesday were perhaps better dressed and more prosperous than most others, but there was little about them that was unusual. Until they became victims.

"Then, it's almost like they become part of our family," said sky cap Stanley McKenzie.

"We watched these people say goodbye to their families and then spent some of their final moments on Earth with them. That creates an unusual bond when we find out they're gone."

The shock that bond creates also helps to crystallize the last hours of the victims and paints human portraits of people who might otherwise be faceless figures making up a grisly death toll.

Weary and emotionally numbed family members, who might provide fuller portrayals of the passengers, spent much of yesterday with grief counsellors at a Ramada hotel a few kilometres from the airport.

Daily News, Halifax, N.S. - 4 September 1998
Further information about SwissAir Flight 111 found on website of:
The Daily News

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