Cary memorial names fallen from pair of Triangle plane crashes

Anderson was 18, a college freshman, going home for Christmas, when she curled into a fetal position and braced for the end.

"It was cold. It was raining. I couldn't breathe," she recalled. "I was in the wreckage. There was fire all around me."

It was the evening of Dec. 13, 1994, when the commuter plane stalled short of Raleigh-Durham International Airport.

"It's very heavy on my heart," Anderson said, listening as the names of the dead rang out on Saturday.

Anderson, with broken bones from her face to her ankles, was among five people who survived. Fifteen others died.

"For so many years, people would say, 'You're alive! You have a purpose!' What is my purpose," Anderson asked. "My purpose is to honor and remember."'

She and her parents worked the non-profit Family Assistance Foundation to raise money for the Cary memorial.

Alexander Kast, who lost his oldest brother on Flight 3379 said the memorial provides a physical space for his grief and memories.

"It's a very special thing for us, specifically because we now have a place to go to and remember him," Kast said Saturday.