Flight 587, 24 years later: In Belle Harbor, Queens, vivid memories remain of those lost

Darvin Delacruz recalled how he was playing a video game 24 years ago when he heard his mother's blood-curdling scream.

At 10 years old, he tried to continue the game; his mother’s "no" grew louder and louder.

"I walk in the hallway, I see my mom crying on the floor in front of my father, and my dad's on the phone," he said.

Delacruz later learned that his aunt, Nurys Rachel Polanco, and his two cousins were among the 250 passengers and nine crew members killed on American Airlines Flight 587 on Nov. 12, 2001, when it crashed in Belle Harbor, Queens.

Now 34, Delacruz joined Mayor Eric Adams, other elected officials, first responders and dozens of family members and friends of the victims on Wednesday morning at the Flight 587 Memorial Park to commemorate the lives and memories of those lost.

"I find myself still thinking about them every day," Delacruz said to a crowd of people, wearing a sweatshirt bearing the images of his aunt and cousins. "I feel them watching me and protecting me from above."

Flight 587, bound for the Dominican Republic, crashed minutes after leaving Kennedy Airport after catastrophic equipment failures caused the plane's engines to separate from the main fuselage. The wreckage slammed into homes near the intersection of Beach 131 Street and Newport Avenue in Belle Harbor, on the Rockaway Peninsula, killing five people on the ground and everyone aboard the jet. At least 11 houses were damaged or destroyed.

"Twenty-four years later, the pain does not dissipate. The pain does not go away," Adams said.

The crash came two months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, when a rattled New York City was already hurting and grieving so many.

"It really leans on the resiliency of who we are as New Yorkers and as Americans, and we must continue to lean on each other through these difficult times," Adams said.

The ceremony began with a tolling of a bell and a moment of silence at 9:16 a.m. — the time the plane crashed. Loved ones then read the names of the deceased.

Before and after the ceremony, friends and family placed flowers in the openings next to the names of their loved ones, as an American flag flew at half-staff.

Juan Diaz Tabar, 56, traveled from the Dominican Republic to New York to attend Wednesday’s event, allowing himself time to reflect before the ceremony started. He became emotional as he placed his hands on the brick with the names of his mother, Dulce Milagros Tabar Almánzar, and aunt, Lina Isabel Tabar Almánzar, who were 58 and 61, respectively, at the time.

"It still hurts," Tabar said, at a loss for words. "[My mother] was one of a kind."

Sister and brother Tricia Mills, 73, and Kenneth Mills, 68, both of Crown Heights, have attended the ceremony every year in honor of their sister, Michelle Mills, who was a flight attendant and lived in Dix Hills at the time of the crash.

Michelle was 46 and had worked for American Airlines for more than 20 years.

"She loved her job," Tricia Mills said while holding a framed photo of Michelle. "We still miss her."

Blanca Lima, 52, of Jamaica, Queens, came to the memorial with her husband, daughter-in-law and granddaughter to honor her ex-mother-in-law, Remedies Montilla, who was 42 at the time.

Although she has been remarried for some time, Lima said she considered Montilla her own mother.

"She was with me more than my mom," Lima said. "She was the best person."

Her son was inspired to become a pilot after the crash, and could not be at the ceremony because he was flying, Lima said.

"He said, I want to talk with my grandma in the sky," she said.

Alba Silverio, 62, of Manhattan, was pregnant with her daughter Rachel Sarmiento when her husband, Vicente Sarmiento Richiez, 43, was killed on the flight.

The couple already had a 10-year-old son and were in the process of moving to the Dominican Republic.

"I was going to go down for Christmas," she said on her plans to join him. "But that never happened."

She gave birth to their Sarmiento in April 2002.

"This is a part of my identity," she said, who paused to cry and embrace her mother. "Coming here is the minimum I could do to pay my respect ... even if he's not here, I still do my part to try to be a good daughter."

"She was born and he left," Silverio said. "God works in mysterious ways."