The Buffalo News: In memoriam: The victims of Flight 3407

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In memoriam: The victims of Flight 3407

Dipinder Sidhu

India native Dipinder Sidhu, 29, was living in California, where he was attending graduate school. He was studying for an MBA. (Updated: 05/18/09 2:09 PM )

Mary Julia Abraham's co-workers at Invacare Corp. knew her for her outspokenness. Co-worker and good friend Marc Schwartz remembers Abraham, on more than one occasion, climbing up onto the table at a business meeting to make a point more persuasively. (Updated: 02/17/09 3:02 PM )

Georges Abu Karam

Georges Abu Karam, 27, from Tiberias, Israel, was on his way to visit his cousin, Joumana, and her husband, Raymond Balijan, in Buffalo when he boarded Flight 3407. It was his first trip to the United States. (Updated: 02/20/09 12:26 PM )

Clarence A. 'Larry' Beutel III

Clarence A. Beutel III, a Buffalo resident who was vice president of marketing at Salient Corp. in Big Flats, near Elmira, left behind a wife and two sons. (Updated: 02/24/09 10:52 AM )

David Borner

David Borner, of Pendleton was supposed to leave for a Florida cruise with his family Friday morning. That is how he came to be on Flight 3407, a neighbor said. (Updated: 02/24/09 10:56 AM )

Ronald and Linda Davidson

Ronald Davidson’s infectious laugh was well-known to the six residents at the adult group home where he worked and to the regulars at the community kitchen in Westfield where he volunteered serving hot lunches. (Updated: 02/18/09 8:13 AM )

Alison Des Forges

Alison Des Forges, a Human Rights Watch senior adviser, was on her way home from a London trip where she discussed abuses by the Rwandan government with a member of the British Parliament. (Updated: 02/17/09 5:44 PM )

Beverly Eckert

One death in particular resonated across the nation because of its haunting poignancy. Beverly Eckert, who saw her husband, Sean Rooney, die when the south tower of the World Trade Center collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001, was on her way back home to Buffalo, her birthplace, to celebrate a few special events. (Updated: 02/17/09 5:49 PM )

John J. Fiore

Retired U.S. Air Force Chief Master Sgt. John J. Fiore saw three wars before retiring to civilian life. Fiore, 60, a Niagara Falls native who lived on Grand Island, was on Flight 3407 on his way back from a vacation, said a friend, Duane Frost. (Updated: 02/17/09 5:51 PM )

Ronald Gonzalez

Ronald Gonzalez, director of a youth program in New Jersey, was flying home to visit family in the Buffalo area. Gonzalez formerly led Alianza Latina, a health outreach organization focused on AIDS/HIV in Buffalo’s Latino community. (Updated: 02/17/09 5:52 PM )

Brad S. Green

Brad S. Green, 53, of East Amherst was a salesman for Kraft Foods, according to former neighbors. Green and his family were kind and helpful, the type of people everyone would want living next door, said Dave Braunscheidel, a former neighbor. (Updated: 02/17/09 5:56 PM )

Zhaofang Guo

Zhaofang Guo, 53, of Amherst was killed in Thursday’s crash. Guo, who worked in the Ford Stamping Plant in Hamburg, was married to Ping Wang, a researcher at Roswell Park Cancer Institute. (Updated: 02/17/09 6:02 PM )

Steven L. Johnson

Steven L. Johnson of Lancaster, a father of three, was one of four Northrop Grumman Amherst Systems employees killed on Flight 3407. (Updated: 02/20/09 1:54 PM )

Kevin W. Johnston

Kevin W. Johnston, 52, of East Amherst, was director of safety, health and environment at Henkel Technologies-Americas in Buffalo. In an in-house message sent Friday, company executives alerted employees about the loss of Johnston, as well as Douglas Wielinski, a former employee who was in the Clarence Center home where Continental Flight 3407 crashed. (Updated: 02/17/09 3:04 PM )

Ellyce Kausner

Skydiving. Check. Wakeboarding. Check. Ellyce Kausner had a mental list of things to do in life, and methodically did them. (Updated: 02/17/09 3:04 PM )

Nicole Korczykowski and Johnathan Perry

To call Nicole Korczykowski talented would be an understatement. Among her achievements: (Updated: 02/19/09 9:02 AM )

Jerome Krasuski

Jerome "Jerry" Krasuski, 53, was returning home to Cheektowaga from a one-day business trip. He was a program manager for Northrop Grumman Amherst Systems, a defense contractor in Williamsville, where he was employed for more than 20 years. Three of his colleagues also died in the crash. (Updated: 02/17/09 6:00 PM )

Brian Kuklewicz

Brian Kuklewicz, 41, was devoted to his family. He and his wife, Karen, had been married for 13 years. Their twin sons, Nicholas and Jacob, turned 9 on Feb. 18. (Updated: 02/21/09 11:12 AM )

Beth Ann Kushner

Beth Ann Kushner had spent the past several weeks in California, where she chronicled her adventures for friends back home through photos on her Facebook page. (Updated: 02/17/09 6:10 PM )

Sean Lang

Sean Lang, 19, of Montgomeryville, Pa., was flying into Buffalo to visit his girlfriend, according to the Bucks County Courier-Times. “He was incredibly loved,” his brother, Lonnie Cooper, told the newspaper. “He was an incredibly cool guy. All of his friends looked up to him as a leader.” (Updated: 02/17/09 3:02 PM )

Madeline Linn Loftus

Ice hockey was part of Madeline Linn Loftus' life whether she was in Buffalo, Minnesota or New Jersey. Loftus, 24, of Parsippany, N. J., was on her way to Buffalo to reunite with 14 other alumnae of Buffalo State College women’s ice hockey team for a Saturday game. (Updated: 02/17/09 3:01 PM )

Lorin Maurer

Lorin Maurer was flying in to attend the wedding of Keith Kuwik, brother of her boyfriend, Kevin Kuwik. It would be her first trip to Buffalo. (Updated: 02/17/09 3:00 PM )

Don McDonald

Fort Erie resident Don McDonald was the go-to man when things went wrong. McDonald, 48, was the technical manager at the Pharmetics Inc. plant in Fort Erie, Ont., and had been with the company for 26 years, said Peter Lucyshyn, vice president of quality operations. (Updated: 02/17/09 3:00 PM )

Coleman Mellett

Coleman Mellett, 34, was heading to Buffalo to perform with jazz flugelhorn whiz Chuck Mangione. The jazz guitarist lived in East Brunswick, N. J., with his wife, jazz singer Jeanie Bryson, the daughter of Dizzy Gillespie. They met when he played guitar in her backup band. (Updated: 02/17/09 2:59 PM )

Dawn Monachino

Dawn Monachino of Clarence typically drove 10 hours round-trip to Pennsylvania, every two weeks, to be with her mother, who has Alzheimer's disease. (Updated: 02/17/09 9:49 AM )

The Mossop family, and Ferris Reid

Outgoing, loving, down to earth. That’s how Donald and Dawn Mossop, their son Shawn and Dawn’s sister, Ferris Reid, were recalled by a church leader. (Updated: 02/16/09 11:59 AM )

Jennifer Neill

Jennifer Neill, 34, was pregnant with her first child. “She was due at the end of May,” said her mother, Mary Neill. (Updated: 02/17/09 6:05 PM )

Gerard Niewood

Gerard “Gerry” Niewood, 64, a noted jazz musician who played blew saxophone and flute with Chuck Mangione and other artists for more than four decades, was arriving for a Mangione date at Kleinhans Music Hall. (Updated: 02/17/09 2:59 PM )

Mary 'Belle' Pettys

Mary “Belle” Pettys, the third of 10 siblings in her West Seneca family, got engaged in December on her 50th birthday and she was to be married in June. Pettys was returning from a brief business trip to New Jersey. (Updated: 02/17/09 2:58 PM )

Donna Prisco

Donna Prisco, a married mother of four from Randolph, N. J., had been a flight attendant for less than a year. She had attended training with Matilda Quintero, a good friend who was also working the flight. (Updated: 02/17/09 2:58 PM )

Matilda Quintero

Matilda Quintero had been a flight attendant for only a year, but she enjoyed every day of her work. (Updated: 02/17/09 2:57 PM )

Capt. Marvin D. Renslow

Capt. Marvin D. Renslow, 47, lived on a Florida cul-de-sac with his wife, a son who is a senior in high school, and a daughter, about 11, whom he often escorted home from the school bus. (Updated: 02/17/09 2:56 PM )

Julie Ries

Julie Ries, 49, a nurse, died just a couple of miles from her Clarence home when Continental Flight 3407 fell from the sky. She had been visiting a friend in Newark, N.J., and was flying back to rejoin her children and mother, a neighbor said. (Updated: 02/18/09 8:12 AM )

John G. Roberts III

John G. Roberts III, a Lewiston native who lived in India, was returning home for an overdue visit with family members. (Updated: 02/17/09 2:57 PM )

Kristin Safran

Kristin Safran was a "whiz" at getting things done, from running a company to running her household. (Updated: 02/18/09 1:35 PM )

Rebecca Lynne Shaw

Rebecca Lynn Shaw grew up in a suburb of Seattle, home of the headquarters for Boeing Co., and decided in her senior year in high school that she wanted to fly. She was the first officer on the Continental Connection flight that crashed late Thursday. (Updated: 02/17/09 3:01 PM )

The Buffalo News : City & Region

In memoriam: The victims of Flight 3407