Decade after Comair crash, healing continues for many
1/5/2007, 5:19 p.m. ET
The Associated Press

RAISINVILLE TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) "” Ten years have passed since a Comair jet crash seared the souls of family members and friends of victims and spread pain and grief across Monroe County.

Many of those affected will convene Tuesday at the memorial to remember 26 passengers and three crew who died.

Flight 3272 from Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport was nearing Detroit Metropolitan Airport on the afternoon of Jan. 9, 1997, in a blinding snowstorm and bitter cold, and pilot Dann Carlsen was beginning to maneuver the commuter jet to an approach pattern.

The aircraft wasn't responding properly. With ice-encased wings, the plane nose-dived into a field close to a former church camp in Raisinville Township, near Monroe.

The memorial is at Roselawn Memorial Park.

"It's basically to bring everyone together and honor the ones that they lost," Arlene Miasel, Carlsen's mother and a resident of Prior Lake, Minn., told The Monroe Evening News.

"I just want to make sure "” because my son would have wanted it "” to make sure that everyone is doing fine and let them know that I'm there for them," she said.

A ceremony also was held five years ago, drawing relatives from around the nation, plus rescue workers and those living near the crash site.

"I want the volunteers who were at the crash "” the fire department, the sheriff's department or whoever "” to feel that they could come, too," Miasel said. "When we had it five years ago, some of them were there and still were taking it very hard. They had never had such an experience in their life."

The gathering is to start at 3:30 p.m. and include the reading of the names of those who died. There will be a moment of silence about the time of the crash.

Among those slated to attend is C. William Kauffman, a professor of aerospace engineering and expert in aircraft accident investigation and reconstruction.

"A lot of family members had questions about why the plane had the icing, and he might make them understand a little more of what happened," Miasel said.

The National Transportation Safety Board determined that ice on the wings of the twin-engine Embraer EMB-120 plane caused the crash. More then 25 wrongful-death lawsuits were filed against Comair, based near Cincinnati in Erlanger, Ky., and Embraer after the crash. Settlements paid by the two companies amounted to nearly $100 million.

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Information from: The Monroe Evening News, http://www.monroenews.com