By Jennifer Stultz
Tri-County Tribune Editor
jstultz@cherryroad.com
Exemplifying Kansas solidarity and sorrow, U.S. Senators Roger Marshall and Jerry Moran shared heartfelt sympathy in a media press conference last Thursday for air accident victims and their families. The collision of a military Black Hawk helicopter and American Airlines Eagle Flight 5342 on Wednesday, January 29 in Washington, D.C. impacted many across the state, and nation, even in Pratt, Kansas where some shared breakfast with a group of hunters who boarded that fateful plane in Wichita the next day.
The tragic accident took place at 8:48 p.m. Wednesday, January 29, in Washington, D.C. as the helicopter carrying three soldiers entered the landing path of the AA jet which had departed from Wichita, Kansas. A fireball erupted as the airplane approached landing at the Ronald Reagan National Airport and collided with the helicopter over the Potomac River. There were no survivors. Since the accident, a victim’s list has confirmed the deaths of all 67 aboard the airplane and the helicopter. Some of them were hunters from Great Bend, Kansas, who stopped at the Servateria in Pratt the day before the accident.
“We had that group of hunters in here on Tuesday morning for breakfast,” said Ezzie Diaz, waitress at The Servateria on First Street in Pratt. “We talked and joked with them, just like we do everyone. It was just so sad to realize they didn’t make it. When the picture came out from Fowl Plains in Great Bend, we recognized them. There were nine of them who sat at the large rectangle table in front here and ordered off the menu. It’s just so sad. Some of them told us they had to drive home with their hunting dogs because they weren’t going to be allowed on the plane. The rest flew out from Wichita; they didn’t make it. So very sad.”
Other victims from the aircraft collision who had somewhat local connections included Robert (Bobby) and Lori Schrock of Kiowa, Kansas. The Gyp Hill Premiere newspaper in Medicine Lodge confirmed that the Schrocks were among the 67 people who died in the crash. They boarded at Wichita to travel to their second home on the east coast and visit their daughter who attends Villanova University in Pennsylvania.
The Miss Kansas Organization, which holds their annual Miss Kansas Competition every year in Pratt, shared on social media that Kiah Duggins, Miss Butler County 2014, 2015 was a passenger in the plane that crashed January 29 in Washington DC. Larry Strong, Executive Director for the Miss Augusta/ Miss Butler County titles said that Duggins was preparing to be a law professor at Howard University in the fall and had been in Wichita supporting her mother who was undergoing a medical procedure. She was in Pratt for two Miss Kansas parades and known to many local volunteers in the organization.
Though not local, an MSN.com story said that Doug Zeghibe, the CEO of the Skating Club of Boston, confirmed at a briefing on January 30 that, “to the best of their knowledge,” 14 skaters were on board the fated flight, returning home from a development camp put on in Wichita by U.S. Figure Skating.
Marshall, Moran, and Kansas U.S. Congressman Ron Estes said they spent the night after the accident and much of the next day in meetings with officials from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), Reagan National Airport, American Airlines and others, looking for answers to how and why the accident occurred.
“We want to express our care and sadness for our communities and the families of these victims,” said Moran. “We are thankful for the heroic efforts made to try and save any lives; we want to make sure to do anything and everything possible to make sure that nothing like this can happen again.”
At the press conference Marshall said this tragedy was on the same scale as other tragedies that involved Kansans including a military plane crashed into a Wichita neighborhood in the 1960 killing 30 people, and the Udall tornado in 1955 that killed 80 and injured more than 200 Kansans.
“When just one life is lost it is a tragedy,” Marshall said. “But when 67 are killed as we have experienced in the last 24 hours, it brings us unbearable sorrow and heartbreak beyond measure.”
Marshall and Moran said they will be working hard to discover and share crash information and details about the incident.
“This will be a long process,” Marshall said. “But we begin now with the grieving process.”
