What a terrible tragedy

Sudden death is awful.  Plane crashes fall into that category.  Death that has a “there but for the grace of God go I” quality — that is, a death that takes us beyond mere sympathy to actual empathy — is even more awful. Plane crashes fall into that category too.

But plane crashes that take the life of someone who herself lost a loved one on 9/11 transform themselves from “merely” awful to almost classically tragic:

Among those on board was Beverly Eckert, the widow of Sean Rooney, a Buffalo native who died in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, according to The Buffalo News.

She was heading to Buffalo for a weekend celebration of what would have been her husband’s 58th birthday, and had planned to take part in the presentation of a scholarship award at Canisius High School that she had established in his honor, the newspaper reported.

My deep and sincere condolences go to everyone affected by this crash.