CNA—After the tragic plane crash in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday night, a local priest made his way to the scene “to be present” with the grieving families.
Father Frederick Edlefsen, pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes in Arlington, Virginia, shared about how he was able to be present to the families that night in an interview with Colm Flynn on “EWTN News Nightly.”
Edlefsen was heading to bed after a long day when he checked his phone and saw the news — a passenger plane had collided with a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan National Airport and sunk into the Potomac River.
With the airport a mile away from his parish, it was close to home for Edlefsen.
Exhausted, but felt compelled to immediately go and “be present”
“I felt it was really my duty. I felt an impulse — call it the gifts of the Holy Spirit or guardian angel,” he recalled. “But the airport is within the boundaries of my parish; we have a lot of travelers from Reagan Airport, airline personnel come to our Masses, and so on. So I felt: I need to be there.”
Edlefsen coordinated with a parishioner and Knight of Columbus who had a background in law enforcement. The parishioner escorted the priest to the airport and to the Admirals Lounge of American Airlines.
The utter shock of families, airline personnel… and then the hard reality
“We were able to be present, not only to the grieving families but also to the personnel who, when they went to work this morning, they didn’t know this was going to hit them,” Edlefsen said.
Edlefsen remained with the families, listening to them and praying with them as they awaited news about their loved ones in the crash. It wasn’t until past 1 in the morning that the families learned there were no survivors.
“At around 1 or 1:30 a.m., more or less — that’s when some law enforcement from Washington, D.C., came in and told the families that no, there are no survivors,” Edlefsen recalled. “Going from search and rescue to recovery and it can take some time also to identify the bodies and the remains of the deceased. So that was a hard hit for those families.”
The crash was the first major U.S. commercial air crash in almost 16 years.
Edlefsen emphasized how important it is to respect the privacy of families who are grieving and “who are still trying to grasp what happened.”
An intimate type of grief, “the most intense I’ve ever seen in my 24 years of priesthood”
“A tragedy like this not only provokes grief, but it’s a very intimate grief,” he reflected. “It was probably one of the most intense grief moments and situations I’ve ever seen in my own almost 24 years of priesthood.”
The tragedy is especially devastating because of its magnitude.
The magnitude intensified the tragedy, total shock
The plane had been carrying 60 passengers and four crew, while the helicopter had three soldiers aboard. The effects reverberated across the nation as those aboard the passenger plane were from all across the U.S., including Wichita, Kansas; Boston; and Washington, D.C.
“Because usually these happen within families, or one or two at a time,” Edlefson said. “But this was multiple families. Several people have lost several loved ones. Everybody is in total shock. They don’t know what to say or how to react. And they’re waiting for the best news.”
Just be present. Listen
When asked how he responded as a minister, Edlefsen said he focused on simply being present.
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