Jacques and Connie Charbonnier

Beverly Hammer was terrified of flying, but overcame her fear to join her daughter, Tracy Anne, on a "mother-daughter bonding trip'' to Tours.

Jacques and Connie Charbonnier shared their lives as flight attendants and tried to work the New York-Paris route as often as possible.

Vera Feeney was taking her only child, Dierdre, with her on what she said would be the last of her annual pilgrimages to Ireland to visit her terminally ill mother. She planned a detour to Paris first.

Eric and Virginia Holst, married six years, were off to a family wedding.

And producer Jack O'Hara had a pink slip in hand, en route to covering the finale of the Tour de France bicycle race for the last time as an ABC Sports executive producer. O'Hara hated flying and traveled by car or train whenever possible. His wife, Jane, and daughter, Caitlin, took the flight with him.

They are names on the manifest of TWA Flight 800 to Paris, strangers who came together in the broad fuselage of a 747 arcing toward France, full of private thoughts, private hopes, all shattered by a wrenching public death.

Dierdre Feeney

At the departure gate in Kennedy, Beverly Hammer's eyes were bright with pride in having passed her stockbroker's exam little more than a week ago. The 59-year-old mother had visions of touring medieval castles while her daughter, Tracy Anne, a 29-year-old doctoral student at Michigan State University in East Lansing, was looking forward to presenting a veterinary-science paper in Tours.

"Everything was perfect," said an exhausted Richard Hammer, standing by the telephone in the living room of his Long Beach condominium and talking about the wife and daughter he lost in Wednesday night's fiery crash off Long Island's South Shore.

"The trip was in the planning stages for four months. It was planned right down to the last detail," said Hammer, an advertising sales consultant. "The ironic thing is, I said to Tracy, 'With my schedule being loose, maybe I can move something around and we could all do the trip together.' She said, 'But you're not invited, Dad. This is a mother-daughter thing.' "

Mother and daughter were high achievers, with restless intellects and voracious reading appetites. Tracy Anne had a lifelong love of horses and would have finished double doctorates in veterinary science and microbiology in May.

"She had tried to get her mother to fly several times," said Hammer. "Beverly had been terrified of flying her whole life. Not just scared, terrified."

When the Hammers went to their vacation home in Naples, Fla., they drove the 1,375 miles. When Richard Hammer won an all-expenses-paid trip to the Canary Islands, he took it in cash instead. When Beverly got her passport to accompany him on a business trip to Madrid five years ago, she balked at the last minute.

But Beverly got over her phobia with the persuasion of Tracy, whom Hammer described as a replica of the strong-willed TV character Murphy Brown.

Traci Anne and Beverly Hammer

Surely they would do fine by themselves in Paris, he thought as their departure time approached.

"We walked over to gate 27 where the plane was and they posted the new departure time, 7 p.m. I gave them a fistful of francs and a fistful of American Express travelers checks. Then Beverly said, 'You know, I'm really feeling good about this. I'm really going to sit back and relax.'

"I'll never forget it. Her eyes were just brilliant. She was all pumped up about this. I've never seen her so pumped up. she was really looking forward to this trip"

"Shortly after 6 p.m., I said, 'I'll leave you international travelers to bond.' I gave them a kiss and a hug and walked away."

A short time later, Richard Hammer called his son, Andrew, 27, in the Hamptons. Your mom and sister got off just fine, he told him. The telephone clicked. Call waiting. It was Beverly's mother from California. In a shaky voice, she asked what flight Beverly and Tracy Anne were on. Flight 800, he said. "Turn on the television," she said. "It crashed."

Jacques and Connie Charbonnier of Northport met as flight attendants 21 years ago, fell in love, and worked the New York-to-Paris route as often as five times a month, a former TWA attendant and friend recalled yesterday.

Their love was obvious to passengers and crew members, said Annbeth Reyman of Roslyn. "They almost only flew to Paris," she added. "That was their route, Flight 800."

Jacques, 65, who managed the cabin attendants, and Connie, 49, one of his crew, loved to work flights together - they met working on a flight 21 years ago, other friends said.

"They had what I would call an ideal relationship, they came from love. They were very positive, very passionate about life. They were the world to each other and it was evident in everything they did," said Reyman.

Connie also had another love: watercolor painting, which she displayed at the Lamantia Gallery on Main Street in Northport. She was a frequent visitor; each month she'd offer something new she had painted for display, a stunned gallery staffer said yesterday.

Going to Ireland was an annual journey for Vera Feeney, 56, a home-care nurse from New Hyde Park. Her husband, John, who has worked in TWA's baggage department for 42 years, stopped accompanying his wife five years ago, when his parents died there.

But 17-year-old Dierdre Feeney, who graduated with honors from Kellenberg Memorial High School in Uniondale last month, gladly accompanied her mother.

Brian O'Hara, a friend, woke John Feeney with word of the crash late Wednesday.

"When he heard the news, he didn't want to talk to anybody," said O'Hara. "He got up and got dressed and went and sat in the living room. I sat with him and watched the news. We haven't discussed much."

Eric and Virginia Holst of Manorville were in their early 30s, married six years, and eager to attend the wedding of Eric's brother Troy in France.

Eric, 32, was a dentist, and proudly displayed his soft spot for children in a Yellow Pages ad for his dental partnership, Moriches Dental Associates: "We love children." Virginia, 31, ran a merchandise distribution business from their home at Hampton Vista Condominiums.

"They were just a wonderful, loving, caring couple," said Vivian Kramer, a neighbor. "I lost my husband two years ago and there are just certain people who are there for you. And that's the way she was."

Luz Mari Pelaez, mother of Virgina Holst, said the couple were going to Paris for about 10 days.

By coincidence, Rosemary Everett, manager of an office next to Eric Holst's, was out on a boat with her husband near the site and saw the smoke. She didn't know it was a plane crash until she saw the 11 p.m. news. She didn't know it was a man she saw every day until yesterday morning.

"I thought, 'Oh, my God, this is a real person. One of those bodies they're talking about, this is a real person and you're never going to see him again.'"

As executive producer of ABC Sports, Jack O'Hara journeyed far and wide to supervise the network's telecasts of "Monday Night Football," "Wide World of Sports," the Kentucky Derby and college football games. But he made no attempt to disguise his dislike for air travel.

"You're on planes all the time in this business, but more than anyone else I know, he was fearful of flying," ABC Sports spokesman Mark Mandel said yesterday. "Jack went out of his way to drive or take a train whenever he could."

On Wednesday night, O'Hara, 39, boarded TWA Flight 800 en route to Paris to oversee the production of the final stage of the Tour de France for this weekend's "Wide World of Sports" show. His wife, Janet, and 14-year-old daughter, Caitlin, accompanied him. Their twin 12-year-old sons, Matthew and Brian, stayed in upstate Irvington in the care of Jack's parents.

The assignment was to be O'Hara's final one for the network after 14 years: he and Dennis Lewin, a senior vice president of ABC Sports for 30 years, were fired Tuesday by former ESPN President Steve Bornstein, who assumed control of ABC Sports in April.

"He and Janet had planned to take this trip for a while. He was combining it as business and a vacation," said Larry Kamm, a longtime friend and former ABC colleague who spoke with O'Hara by phone Wednesday.

"I had called to offer some support because I heard about the situation at ABC," Kamm said from Atlanta yesterday, where he is coordinating director for Turner Sports. "Jack was upbeat. He said, 'You know something Larry? Janet and I are going to Paris. Twenty-four hours from now we're going to be sitting on a boulevard drinking a very expensive French wine. He said we'd talk when they got back."

A combination of work and family obligations kept Brooklyn State Supreme Court Justice Michael Pesce off TWA Flight 800, but sadly his fiance and her mother went ahead with their plans and were among those on the doomed flight, according to a friend.

"He delayed his departure for a week for a combination of work and family," said Tom McMahon, a friend of the judge. After Pesce heard television news reports about the explosion, McMahon said, the judge spent Wednesday night and yesterday trying to confirm whether his fiance, Bonnie Wolters, 44, of Brooklyn, and her mother, Betty, were on the plane.

"We got official word from police department sources and New York State officials. How do you take something like this? He's in shock, very upset, [and] reflecting," said McMahon.

Luke Capozza, 14, tried to savor every last moment with Ludovic Chaunce, an 11-year-old French exchange student who was headed home on Flight 800. At the gate, a flight attendant had to separate the two, who had become fast friends during the past two years of summer exchanges.

"He invited me to stay with him next year," said Luke, of Mendham Township, N.J., who went with his father to the Ramada Inn at Kennedy Airport after the crash. "We were going to send mail back and forth. He shared any secret with me. We were like brothers. He was a real good friend."

Ludovic liked pistachio-flavored ice cream and American sports, Luke recalled. "He really liked baseball and basketball, and always said Michael Jordan was the best. He loved the Bulls."

Dan and Stephanie Gaetke, both 32, of Kansas City, Mo., were traveling to France with Stephanie's cousins, Brenna and Chrisha Siebert.

Married for about six years, the Gaetkes made good friends when they settled into their neighborhood three years ago, helping their neighbors by baby-sitting, watching pets and offering gardening advice.

"They were just the dearest neighbors you could hope to have," said Judy Spaar, who lived near the Gaetkes in Kansas City. Neighbors said Dan Gaetke taught art at an elementary school, and the couple ran a landscaping business called Earthworks.

"Their yard is like a park," Spaar said, describing the well-tended flowers and the Japanese goldfish pond with lily pads and fountains.

Another neighbor, Paula Sterner, said, "They were really excited about the trip - most excited about seeing the gardens and landscaping in France."

Sisters Chrisha Siebert, 28, and Brenna Siebert, 25, who were traveling with the Gaetkes, planned to hit Paris with brio. "They were going to tour as much of France as they could," said Lynn Peters, a close family friend.

Theater was the motivating force in Chrisha's life. A technical director for Rockhurst College in Kansas City, she designed the sets for their theater and musical productions for the past two years.

Brenna, an assistant at the West Side Veterinary Clinic in Jefferson City, recently bought a house in Holts Summit, Mo., where she lived with her two dogs.

Kyle and Amy Miller, of Andreas, Pa., were going to visit a friend Amy met as a college exchange student in France.

Although TWA officials had not confirmed that the Millers were aboard the flight by yesterday afternoon, "We're sure they were on it," said Todd Miller, Kyle's brother.

Kyle, 30, was the "family clown," Todd Miller said.

Amy, 29, "will be remembered as the exact opposite of him - very professional, very meticulous," he said. The couple, married five years, "complemented one another very well."

Kyle Miller, who enjoyed woodwork and fixing up old houses, worked in his family's hardware store as well as their plumbing and electrical business. Amy Miller was the secretary for the hardware store.

"We as family members have placed our faith and hope in Jesus Christ and know that Kyle and Amy are in his presence," Todd Miller read from a prepared statement yesterday. "We know God will see us through this tragedy."

Stevenson, Ala., is a close-knit town of just over 2,000 people, and the loss of five hit hard - Brenda Privette; her son, Thomas Weatherby; Michael Scott; his wife, Barbara; and their 13-year-old son, Joseph.

"The initial shock is beginning to wear off and the reality beginning to set in," said Bettye Jackson, city clerk in Stevenson. "In Stevenson everybody is related by either kinship or friendship. It's a close-knit town. Both Brenda Privette's family and Michael Scott's family have lived in the area for a number of years.

"But now for Michael Scott's elderly mother - her whole family is gone."

Luc Bossuyt, 52, the director of international technology in the medicines division for Bristol-Myers Squibb, was traveling on business.

Bossuyt, who has two adult sons, lived with his wife, Myriam, in Trumbull, Conn. His eldest son, Stephen, 27, of El Paso, Calif., was flying in to be with the family. His other son, Francis, 26, is studying rain forests in Peru, where officials with the pharmaceutical company were trying to contact him.

"It's dreadful," said Alison Olivieri, a family friend. "He traveled a lot but you never expect this. He traveled all over the world."

Flight attendant Paula Carven of Bel Air, Md., also traveled all over the world. On Wednesday, she was on Flight 800 as a passenger with her 9-year-old son, Jay.

"This was a special trip for her son," said Jean Gregonis, who lives across the street from the Bel Air home Carven shared with her son, mother, Ann Carven, and brother, Sean Carven.

Gregonis said Carven was traveling with her friend, another flight attendent, who was bringing her two children.

"I was shocked. She had a lot of friends here," said Gregonis, a neighbor who has known Carven for 16 years. "It's hard to believe, but it will sink in eventually. It's been a very trying day."

Tenafly, N.J., lost a resident in the Pan Am Flight 103 blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. Now it has lost two more to an air crash: Robert and Elizabeth Miller.

"My children told me when I got home that they were passengers," said neighbor Donna Sack, whose comments were punctuated with sobs. "They saw it on the news. I'm still in shock, I can't really relate to it personally. These are the first tears I've shed over it. We've been neighbors for 20 years."

The Millers have a daughter, Kristina, but Sack said she hadn't talked to her yet.

Elizabeth, known as Betty, was a teacher and Bob was active in local government, said Sack.

"We all have to rethink the values we hold and where we intend to travel. I went to London in February and was a block away when a bomb went off there. I didn't think about the reality of it until the next day when we saw the police lines."

This story was reported by Carol Eisenberg, Emi Endo, Martin C. Evans, Carol Hernandez, Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, Ching-Ching Ni, Stuart Vincent, Olivia Winslow, Steve Zipay, Jennifer Ackerman, Dexter Chambers and Tara Siegel. It was written by Geoffrey Mohan.