Stories Behind Crash Victims

A NEWLY TENURED professor and her gifted daughter, a TWA flight attendant heading on vacation with her son, Italian citizens who were placed on an alternate flight to get home, a passionate victims-rights advocate: These were some of the people aboard TWA Flight 800 - and the loved ones left behind.

Constance Coiner taught English literature at the State University of New York at Binghamton, and she taught it well.

Last year she won tenure - and the college's award for excellence in teaching.

Coiner, 48, was traveling to France with her daughter, Ana Duarte-Coiner, 12, for a "well-deserved break," said university spokeswoman Katie Ellis.

Ana was gifted, a sometime actress who took ballet and piano and played tennis and softball.

TWA flight attendant Paula Carven had planned a Paris vacation with her son, Jay, 9.

Patrick Redmond, whose family has been friends with the Carvens for years, said, "The Carvens have always been there for our family and extremely good and caring people. It's just a tragedy."

Saxophone player Wayne Shorter's wife, Anna Maria Shorter, and 17-year-old niece, Dalila Lucien, were flying to meet him while he is on a European tour.

"It's a sad day for all of us," said Sal Haries, president of Blue Note International, which owns several jazz clubs. Shorter, he said, was scheduled to perform at Blue Note clubs in Japan in August.

He said those plans were on hold now.

Mrs. Shorter, Haries said, was not only the saxophone player's wife but also his manager.

"She was always there to guide him," he said.

Michel Breistroff, a new Harvard graduate who played hockey for the French national team, hoped to recapture his lost chance to play in the Olympics for his homeland.

Breistroff, 25, fractured his skull and cut his biceps in preparing for the 1994 Olympic games in Lillehammer, Norway, narrowly missing out on playing for France.

But he hoped to play in the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. On Wednesday, he was returning to France to play pre-season games with the French national team.

Breistroff graduated from Harvard College this year with an anthropology degree. He also played hockey for Harvard, finishing his Crimson career with four goals and 16 assists in 95 games.

Married only a few weeks, Giuseppe Mercurio, 29, and his bride, Anna D'Alessandro, 25, were returning from their honeymoon.

Mercurio worked at his father's produce stand and was part-owner of a jewelry store in a southern town near Bari, Italy, the ANSA news agency reported.

They were among at least eight Italians killed in the crash, the Foreign Ministry confirmed.

All eight were among a group of passengers bumped from a New York-Rome flight that TWA canceled at the last minute, with arrangements to put them on alternate Europe-bound flights, for return to Italy.

Another Italian couple, Mirko Buttaroni, 26, and Monica Omiccioli, 23, also were leaving behind a honeymoon in the United States. Buttaroni worked at a bank, and his wife was a seamstress.

A prominent Houston voice for crime victims' rights was silenced in the crash, and Pam Lychner's two little girls died with her.

Lychner, 37, a founding member of the group Justice for All and herself a victim of a sexual attack, booked flights for herself and daughters Shannon, 10, and Katie, 8. They were heading for a Paris vacation.

Her husband, Joe, was to have joined them later.

Said Houston Mayor Bob Lanier: "Hers was a voice of compassion and reason for those who have suffered."

Jack O'Hara, a five-time Emmy Award winner, was taking his wife, Janet, and daughter, Caitlin, 13, to Paris on what was to have been his last assignment as executive producer of ABC Sports: supervising coverage of Tour de France cycling.

The O'Haras' twin boys, Brian and Matthew, 12, stayed home in Irvington, N.Y., with grandparents.

"It's a surreal atmosphere at ABC Sports and at the network. No one believes it actually happened. It's been a nightmare," said Mark Mandel, director of media relations for ABC Sports.

O'Hara, 39, was responsible for all aspects of telecasts, including "Monday Night Football" and "ABC's Wide World of Sports."

A wrong turn proved deadly for an insurance executive from Memphis, Tenn.

Charles H. "Hank" Gray III ended up on doomed TWA Flight 800 when he missed an earlier flight to Paris after his driver took a wrong turn.

Gray, 47, president and chief operating officer of Midland Financial Group Inc., had planned to fly from Connecticut to Washington and catch a flight to Paris from there, said Elena Barham, Midland's chief financial officer. "They were short on time anyway and then the driver took a wrong turn on the interstate," she said. "They . . . missed the Hartford flight and returned to JFK."

A guitar player from France had been in Nashville, Tenn., to receive a star at the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Marcel Dadi was returning home. He had been a friend of Country Music Hall of Fame member Chet Atkins for many years.

"He was one of my dearest friends," Atkins said.

Dadi helped spread Atkins' style of guitar across Europe. Atkins served as best man at Dadi's wedding and the two played together several times in Paris.

A former track standout from the University of Arkansas had planned to meet his girlfriend in Paris, then accompany her to a friend's wedding in England.

On Thursday, friends and neighbors of Dan Gabor in Pleasanton, Calif. mourned his death aboard the 747 jetliner.

The 27-year-old middle-distance runner earned a scholarship to Arkansas, won three letters and was part of teams that won three national indoor titles and two outdoor championships.

"It is hard to believe he is gone," Razorbacks track coach John McDonnell said. "It is a horrible loss."