Memorial services honor flight crews and heroic rescuers

By Tina Moore

Associated Press

NEWTOWN, Pa. — Bagpipes played as hundreds of mourners wept and sang Tuesday during a church service for the pilot of the second plane that crashed into the World Trade Center.

Friends and relatives of Victor J. Saracini and some of his fellow United Airlines employees, wearing their flight crew uniforms, packed the 1,200-seat St. Andrew’s Roman Catholic Church.

Saracini’s 13-year-old daughter, Kirsten, spoke during the service.

"The last words my dad said to me were, ‘If you don’t turn off the DVD player, you owe me $10.’ That, of course, was followed by ‘I love you and goodnight,’ " she said.

Kirsten, one of Saracini’s two children, also read a poem she had written for his last birthday. It ended: "You will always be my daddy and I will always feel the same. I love you."

Many wept as she softly sang Sarah McLachlan’s ballad "I Will Remember You."

Saracini’s wife, Ellen, thanked those in attendance for their support and "the thousands of anonymous strangers" for their prayers after the crash, which she called a "sudden abomination."

"We will make it," she said. "We will live through this."

Saracini, 51, of Lower Makefield Township in Bucks County, was the pilot of United Flight 175, hijacked after it took off from Boston.

The Boeing 767 crashed into the south tower of the World Trade Center, killing all 65 people on board. It was the second of four planes hijacked for the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. One of the planes crashed in western Pennsylvania.

In Greensboro, N.C., a flight attendant killed in the Pennsylvania crash was remembered Tuesday as a heroine, a charismatic woman and a loving mother.

Dozens of United Airlines pilots and flight attendants, clad in their uniforms, attended the service for Sandy Bradshaw, 38. There was no casket. A table at the front of the sanctuary of Westminster Presbyterian Church bore a photograph of Bradshaw, a single white rose and an unlit candle.

In Washington, a standing-room-only crowd filled St. Matthew’s Cathedral for a memorial Mass for David Charlebois, 39, the co-pilot of American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon.

About 1,000 people, including several hundred American Airlines pilots and flight attendants, packed the church Charlebois attended, to celebrate his life and comfort each other.

"He was a very sociable person who loved being surrounded by people," said a friend, Tom Hayes. "The only time he lost patience was when dealing with bigotry, ignorance or hatred."

Meanwhile, about 350 people gathered in the sanctuary of the historic stone Church of St. Patrick in downtown Washington, D.C., for a memorial Mass honoring law enforcement officers and firefighters lost in New York and at the Pentagon.

"They laid down their lives so others might live," said Monsignor Sal Criscuolo, chaplain for the District of Columbia police. "We were shown tragedy last Tuesday, and we were shown so many heroes."