Roselawn plane crash families honor victims

He has sat with dying cancer patients, held hands with wailing mothers, hugged grieving fathers.

But when it came time to express his own sorrow, the Rev. Brent Wright locked himself up for more than a decade.

He talked to no one, sought no help, retreated emotionally. The agony festered until tears cascaded at the most unlikely moments — in a movie theater, during a car ride or while reading a book.

The memory of his father's death was too raw to contemplate.

"It was painful to look directly at it," said Wright, a 21-year-old engineering student at Purdue University when his father died. "I avoided it."

It was during an ice storm Halloween night 20 years ago that 47-year-old Thomas H. Wright and 67 others were killed — all of the 64 passengers and four crew members — when American Eagle Flight 4184 crashed in a soybean field in Roselawn, Ind.

The twin-engine turboprop was flying from Indianapolis to Chicago O'Hare International Airport. It had been in a holding pattern before final descent, when ice built up on the wings and caused the plane to flip and fall to earth at 4:57 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Wright, a Dow Elanco executive, was scheduled to catch an international flight in Chicago to Europe for a business trip.

The shock and loss kept Brent Wright's grief frozen in time for years. But now, at age 41, he will meet families of the other victims for the first time. Wright will attend an informational forum in Merrillville on Thursday and the unveiling of a memorial wall and garden at the crash site Friday, where 68 handmade crosses have sat in neat rows for two decades. Those crosses will be replaced by the memorial wall, on which the names of each of the victims will be inscribed.

"It's been a journey of grief over 20 years," said Wright, pastor at Broad Ripple United Methodist Church. "This is a new chapter. I am grateful there will be something in that space for a long time."

Fought for victims

Brad Stansberry, a 27-year-old audio engineer with Delphi Delco Electronics, also was on the flight. His sister, like Wright, was a 21-year-old Purdue student at the time. But Jennifer Stansberry Miller ran full speed into details of the crash. Full immersion.

Shocked by the airline's indifference toward the victims' families, Stansberry Miller spoke out, agitated for change and mobilized those families. Her effort helped secure passage of the Aviation Disaster Family Assistance Act of 1996, which guaranteed crash victims' families would be promptly informed of developments in crashes.

Two decades later, Stansberry Miller still gives speeches to airlines, the National Transportation Safety Board, first responders and others organizations involved in disaster response.

"Throwing myself into it was certainly a tool to help me cope," said Stansberrry Miller, now a grief counselor at St. Vincent Indianapolis Hospital on West 86th Street.

Along the way, she found a second family.

"I'm 41, so it has been half my life," she said. "Some of these people were at my wedding. That is the silver lining in the tragedy. The good that comes from a horrific nightmare. Coming together makes it bearable."

Joined the clergy

When Flight 4184 went down on Oct. 31, 1994, Wright was studying engineering at Purdue and had no inclination he'd be joining the clergy. He kept the crash from his mind by concentrating on the day-to-day tasks.

"I coped at two levels. I was functional at the surface. I went to school, did my studies," Wright said. "Things were fine on the outside. But below the surface, I shut down emotionally, and when emotion did come out, it was overwhelming."

"It resulted in waves of grief. There were reminders of my dad's crash everywhere. Movie scenes. I'd be sitting in a theater and there would be a shot of a father and son and I would begin sobbing. I'd listen to a song and it would wash over me. Like a fire hose opened."

After graduating, Wright moved to Colorado and lived there for four years, helping to distance himself further — and farther — from the tragedy. No one in the Rockies knew about his tragedy. His family was far away.

"I didn't know how to share with others or let them share," he said. "Being 1,500 miles away makes that easier."

Wright took a job as a science teacher but soon discovered he liked talking with the students about their problems more than he liked educating them. And he found that he had a skill for making them feel better.

"I learned that people were my vocation," he said. "The part of teaching I loved the most was being with people. Over time, I realized I was more of a pastor."

He switched his vocation, attending Duke Divinity School in North Carolina, graduating in 2003 and becoming an ordained Methodist minister.

Though he still couldn't confide his own hurt to others, Wright said he had a gift for drawing them out and had a special insight to their pain.

"My experience of sudden loss and grief informs my work," he said. "I draw on my experience of loss. I have compassion that comes from experience. I know pain and the journey of grief. I have a sense of compassion in the emergency room. I am not afraid of being bedside to visit a widow — to have experience when the world falls apart and what you have to get through."

But he still had some unanswered questions.

"I couldn't tolerate that God caused this," Wright said.

Over time, he accepted that tragedy is inescapable, but said he is "not afraid to say this is wrong."

"I think things happen," Wright said. "Accidents, illness, awful acts, terrible things happen. I came to see God in a response role. The Cosmic First Responder. He embraces, loves and shows compassion when death comes. God is present. Beyond that, I don't know."

Teen daughter's grief

Brooke Wright was trick-or-treating in Indianapolis when her father's plane went down. She was 13 years old.

"It was just dumping rain on us," she said. It poured so hard, she and her friends gave up by 6 p.m.

When Brooke got home her mother and a handful of friends were there. They looked out the window when she arrived. They had tears in their eyes.

"I had to dry out in the doorway, I was dripping wet," Brooke said. "My mother said a plane dad was supposed to be on had gone down. But we didn't know for sure if he took the flight."

She ran straight to her bedroom.

"There was no confirmation he was on the flight until the middle of the night," she said.

Brooke said she was close to her father because their personalities were similar. Though her father traveled often for his job, he seemed to always be there for Brooke's important volleyball games or violin performances at Park Tudor.

We were both impulsive, go-getters, not afraid to try new things," she said. "We had a lot of fun together, enjoying sports and games and traveling together."

Brooke and her mother, Ann, leaned on each other for solace. The two were in it together. Brent, by then, had moved to Colorado.

"That was the difference between Brent and me," she said. "I had to stay at home, I was a teenager, and me and my mother were kind of stuck with each other to deal with it."

But the first few years were still painful, particularly around birthdays, graduations and accomplishments of which a father would naturally, and proudly, attend.

When Brooke was a junior in high school, a family friend asked if it would be OK to name a place she was opening after Brooke. The center would be where adults counseled grieving children who have lost a parent. The friend was inspired by Brooke's ordeal and strength.

In 1999, "Brooke's Place for Grieving Young People Inc.," opened in Indianapolis and young Brooke provided counseling services.

It inspired her to pursue a career in counseling. She is now a clinical psychologist in Chicago specializing in youth grief.

"The kids run the gamut," she said of those she counsels. "From toddlers to young adults who have lost parents in homicides, car accidents, suicides."

The children — first and foremost — need what Wright said she herself needed after her father died and her mother provided her with assurance that she wasn't alone.

"They need to know that there is still an adult around who is going to take care of them," Brooke said.

Informing the families

Stansberry Miller, unofficial director of the 4184 families and overseer of the sacred crash site, said she is done with it after Friday.

When she began the journey, it was after the airlines buried the remains from 4184 in a Merrillville cemetery without informing the families. Personal belongings were mixed up and given to the wrong families. The media heard about developments before the families.

Now, airlines have to fly families to crash sites and put them in hotels. The NTSB has to give regular briefings before they talk to the press. And experts from the FBI and other federal agencies are brought in — if needed — to identify body parts. On top of that, the Federal Aviation Administration had new rules for when planes can fly in icy weather and how they break ice off the wings.

"With the memorial going up, this is a good time to step away and reflect," Stansberry Miller said. "We accomplished a lot. Things are 10 times better than they used to be. But this (getting the wall built) was a full-time job and was three years in the making. I appreciate having the honor of doing this but it was very labor intensive."

Some things left unsaid

Ten years ago, Brent Wright began shedding his cocoon. He had married Lauren and started counseling to help him with the lasting, but fading, grief. But his family, still today, has never really had in-depth discussion of that night.

"We tend to avoid it as a family," Brooke Wright said. "When we talk about my dad, we tend to talk about my dad more than the crash when Brent is around."

"I talk about it with my fiance, my friends, youth counselors. I guess avoidance is easier in the family."

Ready to take part

Stansberry Miller said she has long known of Wright and his sister but never thought it was her place to pressure them to get involved in Flight 4184 activities, not even at the 10th anniversary.

"I knew of him and his sister because of the good things they had done in Indianapolis, but I never bothered him," Stansberry Miller said. She decided it couldn't hurt to politely ask Brent if he would attend this year and he agreed.

Two weeks ago, they had lunch and details were finalized. Brent will give the reflection address to kick off the forum and attend the dedication of the wall.

"I'd seen her name through the years and had been in awe of her work," Wright said. "But I kept my distance, we never met."

"But I've learned that even deep wounds heal over time and they allow you to become functional again, and I feel I am at that place."

Call Star reporter John Tuohy at (317) 444-6418 and follow on Twitter @John_Tuohy

If you go

• What: Public forum on crash of American Eagle Flight 4184.

• When: From 6:30 to 9 p.m. (CST) Thursday, Oct. 30.

• Where: Radisson Hotel, 800 E. 81st St., Merrillville.

Speakers at Thursday event:

• Reflection: Rev. Brent Wright, Indianapolis.

• Ray Chambers: Newton County EMA Director, Lincoln Township Fire Department, Current Fire Chief, Deputy Coroner, first responder on scene.

• Charley Pereira: Transportation safety and security consultant, former NTSB investigator.

• Greg Feith: Aviation safety and security expert, former NTSB investigator.

• Paul Sledzik : Director, Transportation Disaster Assistance Division, NTSB.

On Friday:

• What: Roadside memorial dedication from 2 to 6 p.m.

• Where: Near intersection of Ind. 10 and County Road North 400 East, south of Roselawn.