Crash Ended Dreams to See the World, Serve Others

Jocelyn Reina’s dream was to travel around the world and see as many different countries and people as possible. Matthew K. Gannon shared that vision, and he wanted to serve his country besides.

But their dreams ended abruptly Wednesday when the Pan American World Airways jet exploded over southwestern Scotland in the worst aviation disaster in British history.

Reina, 26, a Pan Am flight attendant, and Gannon, 34, a U.S. State Department official, were two of at least three people from Orange County among the 258 passengers and crew members who perished aboard Flight 103 to New York City. Jerry Avritt, 46, a Pan Am flight engineer from Westminster, was also killed in the crash of the Boeing 747 jumbo jet.

Relatives and friends of the victims waited anxiously Friday to learn whether the bodies had been recovered by crews scouring the crash site in the Scottish village of Lockerbie.

“She was so young and full of life,” John Reina said of his sister, a once-aspiring actress who changed careers because of her love of travel. Her death “is going to leave a void that nobody can ever fill.”

Their parents, who live in La Palma and had recently returned from a 2-week visit in London, flew immediately to Scotland after hearing of the crash, John Reina said. Jocelyn Reina, who had been a flight attendant with Pan Am for almost a year, shared an apartment in Middlesex, England, with three other flight attendants, he said.

As Gannon’s family awaited word from the State Department before they would make funeral arrangements, they were trying to cope with their loss.

“He died believing that he was serving his country, and that was important to him,” said Peter Gannon of his brother, who was returning to the United States after completing an assignment as political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut.

“I think he wanted to do something meaningful with his life, and he felt that joining the Foreign Service was the best way to do that,” Gannon said.

Matthew Gannon was born in Orange and raised in San Juan Capistrano. He had been a State Department employee for the past 11 years and had worked in several countries in the Middle East, his brother said. Previous assignments were in North Yemen, Jordan and Syria.

Anticipated Holiday Visit

According to his brother, Gannon was on his way home to Poolesville, Md., to spend the Christmas holidays with his wife, Susan, and their two children, ages 3 and 1. Gannon is also survived by his parents, Robert C. and Miriam L. Gannon, and nine brothers and sisters.

Since the crash, John Reina said, more than 200 relatives from around the country have called the family in La Palma to offer their condolences. She left her parents, Ted and Betty Reina, grandparents and other family members in Indiana and California.

Jocelyn Reina “was everything this whole family had, and there’s a lot of us,” Reina said. She “could come into a room and brighten the atmosphere. . . . She was just warm and vivacious and would make people smile.”

Jocelyn Reina, a graduate of John F. Kennedy High School in La Palma and Cypress Junior College, acted in several Shakespeare plays during college and volunteered as an actress for the Renaissance Faire in Agoura from 1982 to 1987. It was there in 1985 that she met her friend Susan Perry.

“I was struck by her the very first time I saw her,” Perry, 26, said Friday. “Maybe it was her energy.

‘Real Class, Real Style’

“She was a very creative person and had a really great sense of humor. . . . always really friendly and happy. Jocelyn had an off-the-wall personality. . . . but with real class, real style.”

Born Kimberley Ann Reina, she changed her name to Jocelyn in 1980 when she took up acting, her brother said, because “she thought there were too many Kimberleys and Kims in the acting field.”

But her real passion was for traveling, he said. After spending a month in London with her parents while she was a teen-ager, “she knew that’s where she wanted to live,” he said.

Perry said Reina was very happy in her job with Pan Am. “She was born to be a flight attendant because she was always happy and had a smile. . . . She loved her job. . . . “

John Reina said his sister referred to Pan Am employees as her “second family, and that says a lot, because we’re a very close-knit family.”

He said his sister had planned to work through the Christmas season and return to California for a visit soon after the first of the year.

“It’s a tragedy to have lost her,” he said, “but how many of us can say that when we have to leave this earth we left loving what we were doing?”

Funeral arrangements are not yet certain, Reina said, adding that Pan Am will handle all the arrangements.