'I Was Meant To Be on Doomed Flight'

Just like flight 5342, Sabena flight 548 was carrying U.S. figure skaters and coaches when it crashed into a field in 1961

- by LORRAINE HANLON COMANOR

There are incidents that divide life into a before and after. Witnessing American Airlines flight 5342 explode into the Potomac in January brought back visions of Sabena flight 548 carrying the U.S. figure skating team to the 1961 world championships crashing into a Belgian chicory field.

A pivotal moment for a 15-year-old, team alternate and ticketed passenger on that flight. A last-minute ultimatum from my private school—“go with the team and don’t come back here”—forced me to cancel hours before departure, my name remaining on the passenger list. At 5 a.m. the next morning, a Boston Globe reporter called my father. “Sorry to inform you, but your daughter, along with the U.S. team, were just killed.”

Raised as a “stiff upper lip” New Englander, I was expected to carry on, go back to the rink, work toward the next championship. Certainly not to mention reading novels of disaster into the wee hours of the morning, mentally replaying images of the five on the Bridge of San Luis Rey or Ethan Frome heading on his sled toward the big oak.

Or of Laurence Owen, Greg Kelley and I escaping between the Skating Club of Boston’s practice sessions to race around the top of the nearby race track. Or my avoiding the classical music station that might include a program selection of one of my former teammates: Laurence’s “Symphonie Fantastique,” Greg’s Rigoletto, Bradley’s La Traviata, prompting a return of their ghosts.