As a child I used to sit on my stoop and look at the planes that passed overhead, screaming their way to
Kennedy airport. Sometimes they seemed close enough to see the people inside, I imagined.

I wondered where they were going to or coming from; what they may look like; and were they excited about being on
this big marvelous piece of machinery. My love for aviation began in those days of looking up at the sky and asking those questions.

I thought about what it must take to fly one of those things.
It seemed like at times I could just jump from my roof and grab hold of the wing and take it right in along with the people on board. In those days the old 707’s, 727’s, 747’s, DC 8’s and 9’s used to come in really low and seemed to buzz our houses. That all changed in the early summer of 1975.

It was the last week of school and the day was cloudy and pockets of thunder could be heard throughout the day. My family was home and I could remember we were at the dinner table when the "breaking news" slate appeared on channel 11. It was a report of a plane crash just south of the Belt Parkway.

The words I heard used to describe the scene were later replaced by pictures I would never forget. The charred hulk of what was an Eastern Airlines 727 could be seen with people milling through it and black smoke that seemed to be everywhere. I believe, at nine years of age, it was the first time I heard the phrase "plane crash" and felt the power of the words.

At the time, I had never imagined that kind of a thing. Planes, to me, seemed almost like the bird they mechanically attempted to emulate. But what I saw though in those pictures frightened me and for first time I knew flying could be dangerous.

My mother put her hand over here mouth during a later report of 113 people dead in the crash that day. In the weeks to come, when we drove past the section of the Belt where the wreckage could be seen, I found myself glued to the window of the car. For years and even decades I would always have a chill when I passed that spot.

Since then, I have witnessed reports of many, many other aviation disasters and through most of my life, the accounts did not do any real damage to my steel-skinned enthusiasm for flying.

However, in the last few years, I have to say, that steel may not have been punctured, but it has been softened. I try to make sure that I am asleep when any plane I am on is taking off. I know that is truly the most dangerous time.

On Monday, I received another amendment to my evolving philosophy on flying as I leaned of another tragedy that happened shortly after taking off at JFK. Two hundred fifty plus people were headed to the Dominican Republic . . . most to be reunited with families, others to visit that beautiful country. Each person with a story to tell and right before the moment of terror struck, they were more than likely doing something they were excited about.

Who could have ever known there would be a day when we hoped that a plane crash was an accident and not the result of some deliberate act born of a sinister mind?

I talked to the people of Belle Harbor and listened to most of their stories of shock and grattitude at cheating death. I thought about what might have caused the death of other people who were not from that neighborhood but are now a permanent part of that community’s psyche. I hoped that I was wrong about my initial concerns that American Airlines flight 587 may have been brought out of the sky by a bomb or sabotage.

As the investigation started to unfold, it appeared that mechanical failure was the cause and there was a growing sense of relief. People actually felt better about the rain of fire and aluminum, knowing somehow that it wasn’t aimed at them or the people on board.

But I felt as if yet another part of our innocence was lost.

A year ago, this would have been an event worthy of weeks and months of debate, analysis and news coverage. Now in the post-Sept. 11 era, it will be viewed as a terrible accident . . . tragic, but just an accident.

In light of what could still lie ahead of us in the terrorism war and from the anthrax threat, let’s hope we can still regard something like this crash with the power and empathy it deserves and not be beaten into becoming de-sensitized to loss of life.