Hometown Tragedy

When Comair Flight 5191 attempted takeoff from Bluegrass Airport on August 27, 2006, the families of the passengers did not expect that they would never see their loved ones again. Nobody expected that the wrong runway would be used; a runway that was half of the length of the correct runway. Nobody expected that plane would crash into the ground a thousand feet beyond the runway, killing 49 of the 50 passengers and becoming one of the worst tragedies in Lexington, Kentucky.

On this quiet Sunday morning, I remember seeing the news reports about this while I was getting ready for church and my piano recital later that afternoon. At the time, the whole story was shocking because I didn’t know what to think of it. I remember wondering if it had anything to do with the 9/11 attacks because the 5 year anniversary was coming up around that time. Later that afternoon during my piano recital, I noticed that one of the girls who was supposed to play before me wasn’t there. I asked my teacher why there was an empty seat and she told me that the little girl’s father had died in the plane crash that morning.

This is why this photo provokes me. It makes me feel uneasy to know that I was indirectly connected to a person who lost a loved one. This picture also makes me upset to know that the mistakes of a few can dramatically affect lives of people within a community. It also draws my mind to the fact that terrible things can happen anywhere. Bad things don’t happen exclusively in big cities or in other countries; they can also hit close to home.