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American Airlines Flight 587 memorial held in Queens

By FOX 5 NY STAFF
Published  November 12, 2022 5:21pm EST
The Rockaways
FOX 5 NY

American Airlines Flight 587 memorial service in Queens

A memorial service was held in The Rockaways in Queens on Saturday to remember the 265 people who died when American Airlines Flight 587 crashed there in 2001.

NEW YORK - A memorial service was held in Queens on Saturday marking the 21st anniversary of the crash of American Airlines Flight 587.

On November 12, 2001, the plane, an Airbus A300-600, crashed into Belle Harbor, on the Rockaway Peninsula of Queens shortly after taking off from JFK International Airport, barely a month after the September 11 terrorist attacks. 

The crash killed all 260 people aboard the plane, along with five people on the ground, making it the second-deadliest aviation accident in U.S. history behind the crash of American Airlines Flight 191 in 1979.

The families of the victims gathered at a memorial built in Rockaway Park to remember the lives that were lost that day.

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A ceremony commemorating the disaster featured a reading of the names of those who died that day, along with a moment of silence held at 9:16 a.m., the estimated time of the crash.

The plane was headed to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic and nearly 05% of the passengers on the flight were reportedly of Dominican descent.