Little-Known Law Helps Loved Ones of Air Crash Victims Cope

For those left behind, the death of a loved one in an airline crash is a free fall into a living hell.

Shock. Hope. Denial. Numbness. Anger.

The emotions are so intense that for decades, air safety officials have ducked behind bureaucratic barriers to insulate themselves from victims’ families. Now, the Montreal-based International Civil Aviation Organization is drafting standards to make the cruel, chaotic aftermath of a crash more humane.

Their model is a 1996 U.S. law that spells out the obligations of airlines, the government and relief agencies to the families. Virtually unknown to the flying public, the Aviation Disaster Family Assistance Act has been tested in three major crashes and has improved what, by any measure, is an impossible situation.

The law’s benefits are valued: private briefings from federal investigators; transportation, lodging and other assistance amounting to millions of dollars at airline expense; a memorial service; the return of personal effects.

But four years after its enactment, some family members are expressing concerns. Many question the use of volunteer airline employees as caregivers after a crash. Uncomfortable with unburdening themselves to employees of the airline on whose plane their loved ones perished, some relatives recommend that the Red Cross be designated as the sole caregiver.

Many relatives of the 88 people who died Jan. 31 on Alaska Airlines Flight 261 off the coast of Ventura County are coming to Washington this week for hearings by the National Transportation Safety Board. In past years, they might have squeezed into back seats. Now, because of victims’ relatives who attended a 1995 hearing on the Sept. 8, 1994, crash of USAir Flight 427 in Pittsburgh, the NTSB will set aside a special section for families in the front of its new auditorium.

Pittsburgh Meeting Became Turning Point

Peter Goelz, former NTSB managing director, recalled that the Pittsburgh hearing was the first time large numbers of family members had attended such proceedings. “Usually [safety board members] did their work in virtual anonymity.”

That encounter proved to be a turning point. NTSB Chairman Jim Hall took an interest in what had been a low-profile campaign for better treatment of families. The NTSB now coordinates family aid after a crash.

The odds of any family losing a loved one in an airline crash are small. The fatal accident rate for U.S. carriers in 1999 was fewer than two accidents per 10 million departures. But it happened to Paige Stockley, a classical cellist from Seattle. Her parents, Tom and Peggy, were killed on Alaska Flight 261. Immediately, an elaborate operation was mobilized to help.

“The thing that is so strange is that you don’t know what the Family Assistance Act is; you don’t know what a care team member is,” Stockley said. “There is this person from Alaska [Airlines] telling you they are there for you and they are going to see you through.

“You are not angry with Alaska at this point. You are in shock. They are making the reservations. They are making cash available.”

The airline flew families to Los Angeles after the crash in the Pacific near Anacapa Island. They put them up in a hotel, a cocoon in which all their material needs were met. “It was like a Disneyland for people in an emergency situation,” Stockley said.

The strangeness aside, Stockley grew to respect her caregivers. “They were just human beings in this unbelievable situation of helping family members deal with something their company was responsible for.”

Nonetheless, Stockley concluded, airline employees are not suited for the job: “Maybe it should be the Red Cross.”

For another family, the caregivers became a focus of disagreement. JoVanna Luque, whose adult son Jay was killed on Flight 261, said that she had to “close the door” emotionally to hers. “If I wanted to say what I felt about what Alaska had done, I couldn’t do that. It was embarrassing.”

But another son became “enamored with the attention,” she said.

Earlene Shaw, who lost her husband, Don, on Flight 261, said that she made a distinction between her caregiver and the corporation. “None of us could think of anything the caregivers could have done better,” said Shaw, a retired small-business owner from Olympia, Wash.

Except that some months after the crash, Shaw got a call. It was her caregiver.

“She had just . . . been informed that, if we were going to seek legal recourse, [she] would have to discontinue all association with us,” said Shaw, who has retained a lawyer.

“It felt very insincere,” Shaw said. “Your soul and your absolute being is open to this person who is there with you day and night and all of a sudden [this person is] gone.”

Airline Also Earned Praise for Its Efforts

A spokesman for Alaska Airlines declined to comment on Shaw’s complaint. The U.S. law does not specify when an airline should end support and carriers set their own policies. Alaska’s effort on Flight 261 did earn praise. The disaster took a deep personal toll on the carrier’s employees because many victims worked for Alaska or were family members. The NTSB has not determined the causes of the crash, although Alaska’s maintenance is under scrutiny.

Johanna O’Flaherty, manager of Trans World Airline’s disaster program, said that airline caregivers take their mission very seriously.

Care team volunteers range from baggage handlers to captains. At TWA, one-fifth are retirees. They undergo special training and receive counseling during and after a deployment.

“Working with people in trauma is a privilege that needs to be honored,” O’Flaherty said. “Their souls are exposed, so we need to prepare ourselves accordingly--intellectually, structurally, spiritually.”

O’Flaherty is a leading industry expert on family assistance. As a Pan American Airways employee, she helped the families of Flight 103, which was destroyed by a terrorist bomb over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1989.

But she acknowledged that there may be better ways to help. One option would be an organization of volunteers from many airlines, so that the carrier involved in a crash would not be directly represented. O’Flaherty also believes that family members from previous crashes should be part of the teams.

“There is no one who can identify with what the families are going through as they can,” she said. “That is so healing.”

The airlines’ central role in the Family Assistance Act was born of necessity.

“There was really no other entity that could do it,” said Hans Ephraimson-Abt, a retired businessman who became an advocate after his eldest daughter, Alice, was killed on Korean Air Lines Flight 007, the jumbo jet shot down by a Soviet fighter near the Korean Peninsula in 1983.

“The airlines have the means and the organization to take care of the families in the first phases after a crash,” said Ephraimson-Abt, who is soft-spoken but persuasive. “They have the personnel to get 1,000 to 1,500 volunteers. They have the telephone banks to respond to inquiries. They have the planes to get families to the scene.”

Ephraimson-Abt said the situation now is much improved. But it has taken nearly two decades of effort.

“No one looked after our families,” he said. “We decided it would be a good idea if we looked after families in other crashes.” The KAL families formed an association and began taking their concerns to government agencies and airlines here and around the world.

Two crashes in 1996--a ValuJet flight in the Florida Everglades and TWA Flight 800 just after takeoff from New York--created a sense of urgency, prompting Congress to pass the legislation.

“It’s not only compassion,” said Frank Carven, a Maryland lawyer whose sister Paula and nephew Jay were killed on TWA Flight 800. “Whoever is running these airlines understands the bottom line. An accident can put you out of business overnight. Or you can take a bad situation and treat people fairly and that will only add to those who use your service.”

For families, perhaps the most tangible benefit of the law has been a formal system for returning personal effects such as wallets, luggage and clothing, which often become treasured objects.

Alaska Flight 261 disintegrated when it hit the ocean. But Earlene Shaw got back a novel her husband, Don, had just finished. It was a thriller that had special significance for the family because Don and their 14-year-old grandson Jesse both liked the author and traded his books back and forth.

Jesse got the book.