Andy Beyer stood at the airport, holding his young son’s hand, waiting for his wife and daughter to land. Justyna and Brielle had been away for a figure skating camp, and their return was supposed to be a joyful reunion. But as the minutes passed and the flight number never appeared on the arrival screen, unease crept over him.
He pulled out his phone and sent a text: “Are you guys close to landing?”
No response.
He waited a few more minutes and tried again: “Let me know when you’re on the ground.”
Silence.
His heart pounded as he refreshed the flight tracking app. The plane had disappeared from the radar. At first, he told himself it was just a glitch, but deep down, fear began to tighten its grip.
Then, his phone buzzed—not from Justyna, but from a news alert. A plane had gone down.
Andy tried to tell himself it couldn’t be their flight, that there had to be a mistake. But the text he never received from Justyna told him everything he needed to know. If they were safe, she would have responded. She always did.
The hours that followed were a blur of frantic phone calls, desperate prayers, and the sinking feeling of knowing yet refusing to accept the truth. When officials confirmed that American Airlines Flight 5342 had collided mid-air with a military helicopter, Andy’s world shattered.
Justyna, the love of his life, gone.
Brielle, his miracle child who had beaten cancer, gone.
Their seats were found among the wreckage in the Potomac River. The family who had fought so hard against illness, against life’s hardships, was now reduced to a grieving father and a little boy too young to understand why his mother and sister weren’t coming home.
Andy clutched his phone, rereading the last messages he had sent. No goodbyes. No final words. Just silence. The absence of a response was all it took to confirm his worst nightmare.
Now, he clings to memories—Brielle’s laughter on the ice, Justyna’s voice calling them to dinner, the warmth of their love that can never be replaced. But that missing reply, that final unanswered text, will forever haunt him.
