A proud father, Andy Beyer celebrated his daughter Brielle’s victory over cancer as an infant. He now faces unfathomable tragedy. On a fateful Wednesday evening, Andy and his son waited in a parking lot near Reagan National Airport. They were expecting to welcome home 12-year-old Brielle and her mother Justyna, 42, on an American Airlines flight from figure skating camp. “We were texting with them right before they were supposed to land and the tracker said landed and the texts went from blue to green,” Andy recalled. What followed were moments of mounting dread as emergency vehicles raced past, confirming their worst fears.
A Dream Cut Short
The collision between the American Airlines plane and an Army Black Hawk helicopter claimed 67 lives, Brielle and Justyna Beyer included. Speaking to CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on ‘The Source,’ Andy shared how his daughter had been pursuing and living her dream. “She was like the dream girl that you could ask for… from the time she was reading chapter books at age three, to how she excelled in figure skating and made friendships,” he remembered through tears. The loss was made even more poignant by Brielle’s remarkable journey – having overcome cancer as a young child, she had grown into a vibrant young athlete on the national skating team. “For this to happen after, we just didn’t think anything so bad could ever happen to her again. That cancer was like one in 100,000. Plane travel is supposed to be safe,” Andy reflected.
Breaking the News
The moment of realization was particularly heart-wrenching for Andy and his son. As his texts stopped going through and emergency vehicles made their way past, Andy had to share the news with his young boy. “He came in the front seat with me. He had a really long cry. He let out a ‘No!’ It really hurt,” Andy recounted, describing the moment they knew their lives had changed forever. The interview with Collins became especially emotional as Andy explained why he chose to share his family’s story: “They, like all the victims, they deserve to be remembered. They deserve to have their story known to the world… they live on through our memories”.
Living Their Dream Until the End
Andy then reflected on the life his family had built together. “We were living our dream,” he shared. “We did soak it all in, and you just never think that something like this could ever happen to you and that it could be taken away from you,” he said. Collins also struggled to maintain composure, wiping away tears during their conversation. Andy’s words captured the essence of his loss: “She just was this social butterfly – smiled in the smallest moments, she was a joy and gift”. The tragic airline incident, which investigators are still probing, has become the deadliest American commercial crash in more than two decades.
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