The airline notified them quickly that a relative was dead. Then it arranged charter flights to the accident recovery site. Escorts ushered the family members the short distance at T.F. Green Airport from their charter flights to buses. The buses ferried them to a Newport hotel, where ministers held services, counselors offered support. In its intensity, only the investigation into airplane disasters surpasses the care and attention given to the victims' grieving families these days.
Relatives receive counseling, briefings, religion.
It was not always this way. Only in the last several years have family members received warm fuzzies instead of cold shoulders, no doubt due to federal law now mandating it but also due to the growing clout of victims. The tender, loving treatment of Flight 990 relatives, and the federal laws requiring it, underscore the rise of a victims' movement that has thrown its weight around courtrooms, U.S. Congress and, most recently, airplane crashes. The movement has forced airlines to tend to crash victims' families, prompted an office at the National Transportation Safety Board devoted exclusively to their needs and spawned a micro-industry focused on their care. The company expects about 45 counselors to be in Newport today.