A.F. Carven III, 54; Advocate for Air Disaster Victims

Arthur Francis “Frank” Carven III, an attorney who became an activist for aviation safety and fair compensation to families of aviation disaster victims after two relatives were killed in the explosion of TWA Flight 800 off Long Island, N.Y., has died. He was 54.

Carven died of pancreatic cancer at his home in Forest Hill, Md., on July 27.

In July 1996, Carven’s younger sister, Paula Ann Carven, a 42-year-old flight attendant, and her son, Jay von Hedrich, 9, were flying to Europe on the TWA Boeing 747 when it exploded shortly after takeoff from Kennedy International Airport, killing all 230 aboard.

Carven became co-founder and director of the Families of TWA Flight 800 Assn. and an advocate for a law that designated the National Transportation Safety Board as the federal agency coordinating the response to families affected by airline disasters, relatives said.

“He was instrumental in getting the airlines to take a passenger’s name of the next of kin when boarding a plane,” said his brother Sean, adding that Carven discovered that airlines and federal agencies were ill-equipped to deal with a major disaster.

“Frank took a deep personal tragedy and worked as hard as he could to help families who were searching for answers and left with little or no information,” said Albert J.A. Young, a former law partner. “He found the airlines really were not set up to handle the experience, and he set out to make things different.”

He was a past member of the federal Department of Transportation Task Force on Family Assistance. He spoke at national forums regarding family issues and aviation safety, and testified before Congress, urging reform of the Death on the High Seas Act of 1920.

Born in Boston and raised in Dearborn, Mich., and Wilmington, Del., he earned a bachelor’s degree in history at the University of Delaware and a law degree in 1978 from the University of Baltimore.

In addition to his brother, he is survived by his wife, Elizabeth; two other brothers; and his mother.