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To Fully Appreciate Life, One Must Consider Death
Remembering the lives lost on Sabena Flight 548
Death. It is not a comfortable topic, but it is an important one.
I recently thought about life and death while looking at a photo in the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Museum in Colorado Springs.
The picture was of the U.S. National Figure Skating Team taken on February 15, 1961, just before they boarded a flight. The team, along with their coaches, officials, and family members, were traveling to the World Figure Skating Championships in Prague. A few hours later, the plane crashed, and everyone on board died.
In 1961, the United States was the dominant force in the figure skating world having won every men’s and women’s Olympic title since 1952. In one tragic moment, most of the team was gone.
There were seventy-two people aboard the plane when it crashed including the women’s U.S. National Champion, Laurence (Laurie) Owen. She was 16 years old and died alongside her mother and sister. Two days prior, Owen had appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated, and an autographed copy of the magazine was discovered in the plane’s wreckage.
Ila Ray Hadley and Ray Hadley Jr., a brother and sister pairs team, were passengers on this flight. The siblings perished…
