THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, September 10, 1994 TAG: 9409100239
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: Short : 50 lines
The tragedy of the crash of USAir Flight 427 reached Hampton Roads on Friday.
The airline announced that Sarah Elizabeth Slocum-Hamley of Chesapeake was one of three flight attendants who perished along with two pilots and 127 passengers when a Boeing 737-300 went down Thursday night near Pittsburgh.
``I knew there was a very good possibility'' that it was her flight, her husband, Jonathan Hamley, said Friday. He heard the news reports Thursday evening and, when he called USAir, learned his wife had been on the flight.
Hamley, an account executive with The Finance Company in Norfolk, said the weight of his loss had not completely settled on him. ``I'm doing pretty damn good, but it comes and goes,'' he said.
Slocum-Hamley had just turned 28 on Wednesday. Gifts and birthday cards were still sitting out at her home Friday.
Slocum-Hamley grew up in Elmira, N.Y., where her family still lives. She had one brother, Jeff, 29. She graduated from Radford University and began flying with USAir in October 1988 while she was living on the Outer Banks.
She met Hamley there that year, and the couple moved to Virginia in 1989, he said. They married in 1991 and, in 1992, they bought their home in the Greenbrier section of Chesapeake. They had no children.
Hamley found it difficult to talk about anything personal regarding his wife. ``It's just too soon to say anything,'' he said. ``Way too early. . . . I can't go into it. Not yet.'' He did say she was a ``great person'' who loved animals.
Co-workers of Hamley said his wife's death shocked them.
``We're like a small family here. We all are grieving with him,'' one of them said, asking that his name not be used. ``She was a super person to me. .
Word of Slocum-Hamley's death spread quickly through the neighborhood Friday. Residents went to the home to offer support.
``They had been in the neighborhood a couple years,'' said a neighbor, Betty Carlucci. ``They were just a nice, quiet couple.''
Another neighbor said of her: ``She was a wonderful person and a wonderful neighbor.''
KEYWORDS: ACCIDENT PLANE FATALITY USAIR by CNB