wfn.org | Three Lutherans Die in American Airlines Plane Crash Nov. 12

[News News <NEWS@ELCA.ORG>]

ELCA NEWS SERVICE

November 16, 2001

THREE LUTHERANS DIE IN AMERICAN AIRLINES PLANE CRASH NOV. 12
01-297-MR

     CHICAGO (ELCA) -- At least three members of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) were on board American Airlines Flight
587 (Airbus A300) when it crashed Nov. 12 in the Rockaways neighborhood
of Queens, N.Y., shortly after takeoff from the John F. Kennedy
International Airport.  All 260 people aboard the plane and several more
on the ground died.  The plane was en route to Santo Domingo, Dominican
Republic.
     A woman and her nine-year-old son, members of Transfiguration
Lutheran Church, Bronx, N.Y., were traveling to the Dominican Republic
to visit with family, and a man, who was a member of La Iglesia Luterana
de Cristo, Freeport, N.Y., planned to  conduct business and visit with
family there, said the Rev. Gary E. Mills, assistant to the bishop, ELCA
Metropolitan New York Synod.
     Mills said American Airlines Flight 587 serves as a "daily
shuttle" for New York residents originally from the Dominican Republic.
For some, it is "like taking the subway to work," he said.
     Members of St. Barnabas Lutheran Church, Howard Beach (Queens),
N.Y., are "safe," said the Rev. Stephen P. Bouman, bishop of the ELCA
Metropolitan New York Synod.  St. Barnabas is about five miles north of
the Belle Harbor section of the Rockaways.
     "It is remarkable that a plane of that size can hit a densely
populated residential community and not burn down the whole
neighborhood," the Rev. William E. Baum, pastor of St. Barnabas, wrote
in a Nov. 13 letter to Bouman.
     "By the end of the day yesterday, we had accounted for just about
everybody in our circle of contacts," Baum said of his congregation.
     "We have heard what have come to be the familiar New York City
disaster stories: the near misses, the I-would-have-been-on-that-block-
except-it-was-a-holiday stories, and the I-used-to-live-around-the-
corner reports," he said.
     For the past 10 years, Baum has been serving as pastor for St.
Barnabas.  "Our ministry together started off with the first World Trade
Center bombing in 1993, then came September 11 and now this.  How
familiar the routine has become.  Trying to call around to members,
family, friends in the concentric circles through communication lines
that get jammed-up or knocked down and don't work.  Just when you think
everybody's accounted for, you realize that each family has a whole
network of aunts and uncles, cousins, childhood friends, co-workers and
acquaintances, and it takes an agonizingly long time to track everybody
down," he said.
     "We're grateful to live in a city of such resilience, heroism and
Job-like stubborn faith," Baum said.
     According to Bouman, the Rockaways were "hit hard" on Sept. 11,
when terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center in New York and damaged
the Pentagon near Washington, D.C.  "About 25 firefighters and 75 others
[from the Rockaways] died" as a result of the Sept. 11 tragedy, he said.

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