Flight 587 sorrow speaks common tongue

NEW YORK - People from two disparate New York communities, bonded by the horror of last week's crash of American Airlines Flight 587, prayed together yesterday for the victims in a sombre oceanside service bathed in sunlight.

The tragedy of the Santo Domingo-bound aircraft brought together the neighbourhood of Rockaway Beach and the predominantly Dominican community of Washington Heights in Manhattan.

Aside from their Roman Catholic faith, they had little in common.

"You are brothers and sisters to us and we welcome you here," said Monsignor Martin Geraghty of the St Francis de Sales Church in Rockaway, where the plane crashed. All 260 passengers and five people on the ground were killed.

The aircraft had just taken off from John F. Kennedy International Airport, and most of the passengers were flying to the capital of the Dominican Republic for family visits. About a million New Yorkers have ties to the Caribbean nation.

Speaking in Spanish and English, religious leaders offered condolences and prayers in the interfaith ceremony to about 4000 relatives and friends of the victims. Most sat stoically or cried quietly during the hour-long service at Jacob Riis Park, next to the Atlantic Ocean and near the site of the crash.

The tragedy was a double blow to both communities because they each lost many people in the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. The cause of the Flight 587 crash is not yet known.

- REUTERS

Full coverage: Crash of Flight 587