MS Meena Park, in Glendale, California, has felt this anguish before. Fourteen years after her husband was among those killed when a Soviet missile downed a Korean plane, Ms Park (41) found herself waiting again to hear the fate of loved ones feared dead in another crash of a Korean jetliner. Ms Park's youngest sister, Ms Meejin Park Lee, and 8-year-old niece, Tiffany Kang, were among the 254 people aboard Korean Air Flight 801, which crashed early on Wednesday in Guam.
Nine of Ms Lee's in-laws were also on the flight, all of them headed to the Pacific island from Seoul, South Korea, for a five-day holiday. Tiffany had gone to Korea by herself to spend the summer with relatives, leaving her mother behind.
It was not immediately clear if any of Ms Park's relatives were among the roughly 35 survivors.
"What else?" Ms Park asked, sobbing. Her husband died in September 1983, when Korean Air Lines Flight 007 strayed into Soviet air space and was shot down. All 269 people on board died.
A list of passengers was released about 12 hours after Wednesday's crash. A "Diffany Kang" and "Meejin Park" were on the list, but it did not say if they were among those who survived.