The marquee of Barleycorn's club in Wichita conveys the grief of a community mourning the Kansans and other passengers and crew killed in a Washington D.C. plane and helicopter crash last week. Hugo Phan / KMUW

Kansas families share grief with those from around the globe at lives lost in Washington, D.C., crash

KMUW, Local news, Uncategorized / / KMUW, Wichita Journalism Collaborative / 9 minutes of reading

By Meg Britton-Mehlisch/KMUW

Here’s what we know about the victims of the American Airlines and a Black Hawk helicopter crash last week.

There were no survivors when an American Airlines flight from Wichita and a Black Hawk helicopter collided over the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. last week.

The crash claimed the lives of the 60 passengers and four crew members on the commercial flight, and the lives of the three Army pilots on the helicopter. American Eagle Flight 5342 was on its final approach to a runway at Reagan National Airport and defense officials said that the helicopter was on a training flight.

Federal and local D.C. area authorities are working together under a unified command to coordinate the work at the crash site. On Tuesday, the unified command said that all 67 people have been recovered from the crash site; all but one have been identified.

To date, no official flight manifest has been released for the commercial flight. But families, friends and colleagues of the presumed dead have begun to create a portrait of the lives lost.

The names of eight passengers have not been released yet. Here’s what we know about the victims so far.

Kansans:

  • Kiah Duggins, 30, 
  • Grace Maxwell, 20
  • Lindsey (Carter) Fields, 40
  • Bob Schrock, 58 
  • Lori (Girard) Schrock, 56
  • Pete “PJ” Diaz, 30
  • Dustin Miller, 43

So far, seven Kansans have been identified among the passengers on the D.C. bound flight. They were four Wichitans, a couple from Kiowa and an El Dorado man.

Duggins was among the first passengers identified from the commercial flight. A native of Wichita, she graduated from East High School and was a former Miss Butler County.

Duggins attended the Barton School of Business at Wichita State University. She earned degrees in international business, economics and Spanish while at WSU. Duggins went on to get her degree from Harvard Law School, serving as president of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau while there.

After law school, Duggins moved to Washington where she worked as an attorney for the Civil Rights Corps. In 2023, she advocated for the EPA to act on contaminated groundwater in minority neighborhoods in Wichita. She was looking forward to teaching at Howard University School of Law in the fall. Duggins was traveling back to Washington after visiting family in Wichita.

Maxwell came back to her native Wichita for her grandfather’s funeral. A student at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio, she was on her way back to classes. Maxwell’s family told The Wichita Eagle that she was working toward a degree in mechanical engineering with a minor in biomedical engineering.

In a memorial service at the university on Friday, school leaders recounted how Maxwell was known for her devotion to others and a regular on the university’s student-run radio station. Friends told The Eagle that in her final broadcast, she talked about her grandfather, grief and finding hope through the pain.

Fields of Wichita was a biology professor at Butler Community College and the president-elect for the National Association of Biology Teachers. A passionate science educator, Fields’ colleagues told KAKE that she’d moved her trip to Flight 5342 so that she wouldn’t impact her teaching schedule at the college as she traveled to D.C.

The NABT said in a statement that she was traveling to “represent the NABT community and advocate for excellence in life science education.”

Fields wrote in a biography for the college’s biology department that she’d attended Seward County Community College in Liberal before transferring to Oklahoma State University for her bachelor’s and master’s of sciences degrees in zoology. She completed her doctorate at the University of Mississippi. An obituary for Fields said that she was a wife and mother of a 3-year old girl who was “the light of her life.”

Bob and Lori Schrock of Kiowa were president and vice president of Premium Grain, McClatchy newspapers report. The Schrocks grew wheat and canola in Kiowa and northern Oklahoma. An obituary published about the couple said that they transformed their family farm into a thriving agriculture business.

Bob Schrock was born in Kiowa, but loved to travel to the beach and sought out ocean-related activities. Lori (Girard) Schrock was born in Topeka and received degrees in accounting, English and linguistics from Wichita State. Her obituary notes that she was involved in St. John the Apostle Catholic Church in Kiowa and “brought humor and joy to those around” her.

The Schrocks had a home in Annapolis, Maryland. Their daughter, who is a college student at Villanova University in Philadelphia, told the Washington Post that her parents were traveling to visit her at school.

Diaz was a graduate of Valley Center High School who worked in aviation, The Eagle reported. The paper writes Diaz loved traveling and was on the flight to D.C. for leisure. He was looking forward to a long cruise next year.

Miller was an IT professional from El Dorado. He grew up in Rosalia and was a graduate of Flint Hills High School, according to an obituary published by his family. After high school, he attended Butler Community College and studied computer science.

Miller moved to Tucson, Arizona, to be closer to family. He lived there for several years before moving back to El Dorado to be closer to his girlfriend.

His sister said in a statement that he was an outdoorsman, great chef and “the funniest guy in the room.” Miller was also an avid Kansas City Chiefs fan and was looking forward to watching the team’s third straight Super Bowl appearance.

Miller was an information technology technician at Watermark Retirement Communities. He was on a work trip to Rochester, New York, when the crash occurred. A statement from his boss on a GoFundMe for Miller’s family said he will be missed terribly.

Figure skaters, coaches and families:

  • Evgenia Shishkova, 52, coach
  • Vadim Naumov, 55, coach
  • Spencer Lane, 17, skater
  • Christine Lane, 49, mother of Spencer Lane
  • Jinna Han, 13, skater
  • Jin Hee Han, 49, mother of Jinna Han
  • Alexandr “Sasha” Kirsanov, 46, coach
  • Cory Haynos, 16, skater
  • Roger Haynos, 56, father of Cory Haynos
  • Stephanie Branton Haynos, 56, mother of Cory Haynos
  • Brielle Beyer, 12, skater
  • Justyna Magdalena Beyer, 42, mother of Brielle Beyer
  • Sean Kay, 11, skater
  • Julia Kay, 42, mother of Sean Kay
  • Angela Yang, 11, skater
  • Zhengheng “Lily” Li, 50, mother of Angela Yang
  • Alydia Livingston, 11, skater
  • Everly Livingston, 14, skater
  • Donna Smojice Livingston, 48, mother of Alydia and Everly Livingston
  • Peter Livingston, 48, father of Alydia and Everly Livingston
  • Olivia Eve Ter, 11, skater
  • Oleysa Taylor, 50, mother of Olivia Eve Ter
  • Edward “Eddie” Zhou, 16, skater
  • Kaiyan Mao, 52, mother of Edward Zhou
  • Yu Zhou, 60, father of Edward Zhou
  • Franco Aparicio, 14, skater
  • Luciano Aparicio, father of Franco Aparicio
  • Inna Volyanskaya, 59, coach

Nearly half of the passengers on the American Airlines flight were skaters, parents and coaches leaving the U.S. Figure Skating development camp held in Wichita last week, the sporting body confirmed in a statement on Sunday.

The development camp followed the U.S. Figure Skating Championships at Intrust Bank Arena. The invitation-only camp was an opportunity for young and up-and-coming skaters to work with high-level coaches and athletes from the sport. The three-day camp ended Wednesday after sessions for the highest-performing skaters.

The skaters and coaches on the flight hailed from five clubs in the East Coast: the Skating Club of Boston in Norwood, Massachusetts; the ION Figure Skating Club in Leesburg, Virginia; the University of Delaware Figure Skating Club in Newark, Delaware; the Skating Club of Northern Virginia in Fairfax, Virginia, and the Washington Figure Skating Club from around the D.C. metro.

Passengers:

The passengers of Flight 5342 were a wide array of travelers. Some were international, like Malabed who was an officer from the Philippine National Police.

Several were business professionals, wrapping up work in Wichita. Among them were co-workers Best and Keys, two attorneys at the D.C. law firm Wilkinson Stekloff; Collins and Nicandri, two analysts at Moody’s; Patel, an engineer for GE Aerospace; Prewitt, a construction supervisor for The Industrial Company, according to the Kansas City Star, and Hussain-Raza, a health care consultant.

Some traveled with friends. Seven of the passengers were members of a D.C.-area hunting group that had just finished a hunting trip with Fowl Plains, a central Kansas waterfowl outfitter.

Flight 5342 crew:

Flight 5342 was operated by PSA Airlines, a regional airline company out of Dayton, Ohio. The company is wholly owned by American Airlines.

Campos worked for PSA Airlines for eight years, according to the New York Times. A Brooklyn native, his family told the paper he’d wanted to be a pilot since the age of 3. He was a 2015 graduate of the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida.

Lilley was a second-generation pilot. His father said in a Facebook post that he was “so proud when Sam became a pilot. Now it hurts so bad I can’t even cry myself to sleep.” Lilley worked for PSA Airlines for two years. He lived in Charlotte, North Carolina, and was engaged to be married.

Staffing the flight along with Campos and Lilley were two flight attendants. Elder was a married mother of two children, ages 13 and 5. Her brother-in-law told WSOC that Elder was “an entrepreneur” and that being a flight attendant was “one of her dreams.”

Epstein’s sister told the Associated Press that he was “full of life” and loved traveling and meeting new people. He was married and a father and stepfather to four children, according to his obituary.

Elder and Epstein were both members of the Association of Flight Attendants. They were both residents of Charlotte, North Carolina.

Helicopter crew:

  • Staff Sgt. Ryan Austin O’Hara, 28
  • Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves, 39
  • Capt. Rebecca M. Lobach, 28

The United States Army identified the three soldiers who were onboard the Black Hawk helicopter. The crew was assigned to the 12th Aviation Battalion at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. Defense officials said the crew was conducting a routine training flight.

Eaves and O’Hara were identified first. Lobach’s name was released later at the request of her family.

O’Hara was a pilot and helicopter technician originally from Lilburn, Georgia. He was deployed to Afghanistan from March to August 2017 and had earned several medals and commendations.

Eaves, of Great Mills, Maryland, originally served with the U.S. Navy before transitioning to the U.S. Army as a pilot in 2017. He’d also earned several medals and accommodations from both the Army and Navy.

Lobach, of Durnham, North Carolina, was an aviation officer. A statement from her family said that she’d earned certification as a pilot-in-command and served as a White House military social aide for events like the presentation of the Medal of Honor and Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Support

Several fundraising efforts have been established to support the families of the victims and help cover funeral costs.

In Wichita, the Wichita Foundation established ICT Together to contribute funds to the affected families and local organizations and nonprofits working on recovery efforts. In D.C., the Greater Washington Community Foundation has organized a similar effort called DCA Together Relief Fund.

GoFundMe is also working to aggregate a list of verified fundraisers that will be distributed to first responders and victims’ families. You can view that list by visiting GoFundMe.com/c/act/help-dc-plane-crash.

This article may be updated as more information becomes available.

This article was republished here with the permission of: KMUW