Interesting Passenger on Flight 3407 on 2/12/2009"………………….Alison Des Forges (left) of Buffalo, was senior adviser for Human Rights Watch's Africa division. Considered one of the world's leading experts on the genocide in Rwanda, Des Forges testified at 11 trials at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda as an expert witness. She was named a MacArthur Fellow in 1999.
Des Forges was returning home to Buffalo after a trip to Europe, where she had briefed diplomats on the situation in Rwanda and Africa's Great Lakes region, said Emma Daly, spokeswoman for Human Rights Watch. She sent an e-mail to colleagues from the airport before boarding the plane.
"She was working till the end," Daly said.
Des Forges had a "tremendous commitment to human rights and her tremendous principles," Daly said.
A Sept. 11 widow who put her never-ending grief over the loss of her husband on that black day to good use, trying to make the country safer, Beverly Eckert had met with President Barack Obama just last week at the White House to discuss how the new administration would handle terror suspects.
"She was an inspiration to me and to so many others. I pray her family can find peace and comfort," the president said.
"She was such an important part of all of our work," said Mary Fetchet, another 9/11 family activist. She learned Eckert was aboard the plane from another close Eckert family friend now headed to Buffalo.
Eckert, who was flying to Buffalo to celebrate what would have been her husband Sean Rooney's 58th birthday. He worked at Aon Corp., a risk management firm, at the 98th floor of the World Trade Center's south tower.
She cried when she would tell the story about how her husband - who was her high school sweetheart - called her on the morning of the attacks, and told her he loved her just before there was a loud explosion and nothing more.
Eckert was part of a small group of Sept. 11 widows, mothers, and children who became amateur lobbyists, ultimately forcing lawmakers in 2004 to pass sweeping reforms of the U.S. intelligence apparatus.