The loss of life was not on a scale with that of TWA Flight 800 or Swissair Flight 111. More than 200 people died in each of those crashes, without survivors. Yet the ASA crash is writ large across many lives. In the three years since the crash, two children have been born to survivors, and two more are expected in December.
Plane crashes have their own immutable power and mythology.
And they are a community still, joined now by their families and everyone who rushed into the field to save total strangers. Survivors found out who they were that day in a way most people never will. It didn't matter whether you were white, black, male, female, dressed, not dressed. The only thing that mattered was whether you were breathing. Because of the crash, Gray says, he views it the other way around.