Thirty years changes almost everything. Children grow up and have families of their own. Cities become almost unrecognizable. The technology that once seemed futuristic becomes part of ordinary life.

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Even tragedies that once dominated the news gradually recede into history.

For the families of TWA Flight 800, July 17, 1996, never did.

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I do not want this essay to be about me, though some of that is unavoidable.

That summer evening, I was twenty-five, only weeks removed from law school. The North Carolina bar examination was days away, and most of my attention was supposed to be fixed on outlines, practice questions, and the uneasy prospect of beginning a legal career.

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I had clerked at a law firm, but I was not sure that was where I would stay. Over spring break, I went to Washington to see the city again and think about whether there might be a place for me there. By graduation, I knew I would take the bar. Beyond that, very little was settled. 

That Wednesday evening, I met friends for dinner—a final get-together before the long, solitary hours of study familiar to every bar applicant.

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Televisions lined the restaurant, tuned to ESPN, CNN, or the networks. That summer, two stories dominated the news: the ValuJet Flight 592 crash in the Florida Everglades and the approaching Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta.

Those stories were more than bookends, though I did not understand that at the time.

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Americans still remembered Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, and concerns about Olympic security were constant. Many feared terrorism.

For my family, those concerns were not abstract. My uncle, aunt, and three cousins lived in Marietta, northwest of Atlanta, and planned to leave before the opening ceremonies.

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Atlanta held a central place in our family’s history. Both of my father’s siblings and my mother’s brother had lived there, and for a time, so had we. 

Before Charlotte became an international financial center and Nashville experienced its extraordinary growth, Atlanta was the metropolis of the South—a southern Manhattan, a place where opportunity seemed to gather.

It was little wonder that so much of our family had found its way there.

Then the programming changed.

Breaking news interrupted the broadcast.

A Trans World Airlines Boeing 747 bound for Paris had crashed into the Atlantic shortly after departing New York.

Early reports were confused. Witnesses described an explosion or a streak of light rising into the sky. With the Olympics days away and Lockerbie still fresh in memory, many suspected terrorism.

I watched, unable to look away, though I could not have explained why. Even now, I sometimes wonder about that.

Maybe anyone would have done the same. Afterward, I found myself wondering whether I had sensed something. More likely, it was simply the unease that sometimes accompanies watching tragedy unfold.

After dinner, I returned to my apartment. The parking lot was quiet. Only the cicadas broke the stillness, the air heavy with summer heat. I walked to my apartment, unlocked the door, and stepped inside.

A red light blinked on my answering machine.

At first, nothing about it seemed unusual.

I assumed it was my girlfriend. She was home for the summer while I studied for the bar. Relationships unfolded at a different pace then. Long-distance calls were planned rather than casual. Answering machines caught the moments you missed. Email was still something of a novelty. Handwritten letters remained a way to stay connected. Text messages and social media belonged to a future we could scarcely imagine.

I do not remember whether she called that night.

Memory preserves some moments with startling clarity while allowing others to disappear altogether.

What I do remember is my father’s message.

There was an edge in his voice I had never heard before.

“Call home. It’s an emergency.”

I picked up the phone immediately.

Thirty years have blurred some details. I cannot now remember whether my mother or my father answered.

What remains unmistakable is the news.

My father’s brother—my uncle—and one of my cousins were believed to have been aboard TWA Flight 800.

They had been traveling on standby.

There was no confirmation.

Only uncertainty.

Perhaps they had not cleared standby.

Perhaps they had taken another flight.

Until that night, death had always seemed to follow the natural order of things. I remembered older relatives who had died after full lives, yet all four of my grandparents were still living.

My uncle was forty-nine.

My cousin was fifteen.

At twenty-five, those ages seemed far apart—one settled, with a wife, children, and a business; the other only beginning to discover who he might become. Neither seemed remotely close to the end of life.

Thirty years later, I have long since passed the age my uncle would never know.

My daughter is now approaching the age my cousin was when he died. Whenever I allow myself to dwell on that, my soul grieves for him anew. Only as a father have I truly come to appreciate just how young fifteen really is.

In those first hours, even the number of passengers remained uncertain. Reports differed by two—and that difference mattered.

Could they still be somewhere else—perhaps on another flight en route to Paris?

Hope has an extraordinary ability to survive, especially when the facts remain incomplete.

For a few hours, ours did.

But then the reports aligned—and our hope surrendered to a reality none of us wanted to accept.

The years that followed would bring funerals, investigations, memorials, anniversaries, and questions that persist even now.

But those belong to another story.

Everything that followed began with a blinking red light on an answering machine and a telephone call I returned from a dimly lit apartment on a July evening in 1996.

Charlton Allen is an attorney and former public servant who writes on policy, culture, and history. He is the nominee of President Donald J. Trump to serve as General Counsel of the Federal Labor Relations Authority, pending Senate confirmation. The views expressed are solely his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the President or his administration.

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